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The "Works op Herbert Spencer, 



SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 
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New York: D. APPLET ON &* CO., Publislurs. 



E S SAY S: 



MORAL, POLITICAL AND ESTHETIC. 



BY 



HEEBEET SPENCEE. 



AUTHOE OF 

illustrations of universal progress," " first principles of philosophy 

"education," "social statics, 11 "elements of biology, 11 "elements 

of psychology, 11 "classification of the sciences," 

etc., etc., etc. 



NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. 



NEW YOEK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 & 551 BROADWAY. 

1878. 



1&7& 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 
By D. APFLETOB & 00, 

la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for tb« 
Southern District of New York. 



In Exchange 

Univ. of North Carolina 

JAN 3 1 K" 4 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The miscellaneous writings of Herbert Spencer, 
originally published in various English periodicals, were 
collected by the Author and reissued in London in two 
volumes, under the title of " Essays Scientific, Political, 
and Speculative," first and second series — the former 
appearing in 1857, and the latter in 1863. Neither of 
these volumes has been printed in this country, though 
a small edition of the second series was imported in 
sheets, bound and sold in a few weeks. The increasing 
demand for these works on this side of the Atlantic, and 
the impracticability of obtaining them from England, 
owing to the high rate of exchange, made it desirable 
to republish them here. Accordingly, a portion of the 
Essays, selected from both series, were recently reissued 
under the title of " Illustrations of Universal Progress.' 1 
This collection embraced the more strictly scientific ar- 
ticles, and those which bore most directly upon the gen 



4 PEEFACE. 

eral doctrine of Progress or Evolution. The present 
volume puts the American public in possession of Mr. 
Spencer's remaining essays. 

It is to be observed, however, that nearly all that 
this Author has written bears more or less directly upon 
the theory of Evolution, and that his tendency is to 
consider all subjects in their scientific aspects and rela- 
tions ; that is, he aims to seize and bring out with scien- 
tific precision, the fundamental principles of the subject 
treated. This trait is eminently marked in his disquisi- 
tions upon Education, and will be found equally to char- 
acterize the essays now published. 

The large success and high commendation which the 
former volume has met with, shows that the geniut 
Mr. Spencer is widely appreciated in this country, 
renders any laudation of his works unnecessary in this 
place. But it is proper to call attention to the special 
claims of several of the essays of this collection upon 
the American public. The nature of our political insti- 
tutions implies, and their success demands, on the part 
of the people, an acquaintance with those fundamental 
principles which determine the reason, the scope, and 
authority of all civil rule. Repudiating as we did, at 
the outset of our national career, the ancient and pre- 
vailing forms of government ; casting loose to a consid- 
erable extent from the traditions and precedents of the 
past, and organizing a new system professedly founded 
upon self-evident truths, and aiming at the establish- 



PREFACE. 5 

raent of natural rights, it is obvious that our citizens 
have a vital and peculiar interest in the elucidation of 
those foundation truths which should guide the course 
of legislation, and control the policy of government 
And now when our political system is convulsed to its 
centre, and we are passing into a new order of things, 
this duty is pressed upon us with critical urgency, and 
we are summoned with solemn and startling emphasis 
to the task of moulding our civil policy into completer 
harmony with those principles which advancing knowl- 
edge and a riper experience have combined to establish. 

Mr. Spencer has given these subjects profound and 
protracted study, and the views he advances are entitled 
to grave consideration. A devoted student of science 
in its comprehensive bearings upon the welfare and im- 
provement of society, he has labored to unfold and il- 
lustrate those laws of human nature and human action, 
of social organization and social growth, which rest at 
the foundation of all intelligent administration of public 
affairs. Without by any means assuming that his views 
are final, it may be claimed that they mark an immense 
advance in political philosophy, that they indicate the 
inevitable direction of future progress, and throw im- 
portant light upon numerous questions of immediate 
and practical concern. 

Although some of the following Essays may seem to 
be confined to the consideration of English policy, yet 
this limitation is only apparent. English facts and 



6 PEEFACE. 

experiences are taken as examples and illustrations, but 
the discussions strike through to principles of universal 
moment and applicability. The line of thought opened 
in portions of this volume is systematically pursued in 
the Author's work entitled " Social Statics ; or, the con- 
ditions essential to human happiness specified, and the 
first of them developed," which is n&w in course of re- 
publication. 

New Yoek, Sept. 10, 1864 



CONTENTS 



VAGI 

I. — The Philosophy of Style, . . . . . 9 



II. — Over-legislation, 48 

III. — The Morals of Trade, 107 

IV. — Personal Beauty, 149 

V. — Representative Government, . . . .163 

VI.— Prison-ethics, 21C 

VII. — Railway Morals and Railway Policy, . . 251 

VIII. — Gracefulness, 312 

IX. — State-tamperings with Money and Banks, . .319 
X. — Parliamentary Reform : the Dangers and the 

Safeguards, . . . . . . . 353 

XI. — Mill versus Hamilton — The Test of Truth, . .383 



/ 




THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 



COMMENTING on the seeming incongruity between 
his father's argumentative powers and his ignorance 
of formal logic, Tristram Shandy says : — " It was a matter 
of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three 
fellows of that learned society, that a man who knew not 
so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work 
after that fashion with them." Sterne's intended implica- 
tion that a knowledge of the principles of reasoning 
neither makes, nor is essential to, a good reasoner, is 
doubtless true. Thus, too, is it with grammar. As Dr. 
Latham, condemning the usual school-drill in Lindley 
Murray, rightly remarks : — " Gross vulgarity is a fault to 
be prevented ; but the proper prevention is to be got from 
habit — not rules." Similarly, there can be little question 
that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaint- 
ance with its laws, than upon practice and natural apti- 
tude. A clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive 
ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts 
needless. He who daily hears and reads well-framed 
sentences, will naturally more or less tend to use similar 
ones. And where there exists any mental idiosyncrasy — ■ 
where there is a deficient verbal memory, or an inadequate 



<r 



10 THE PHILOSOPHr OF STYLE. 

sense of logical dependence, or but little perception of 
order, or a lack of constructive ingenuity ; no amount of 
instruction will remedy the defect. Nevertheless, some 
practical result may be expected from a familiarity with 
the principles of style. The endeavour to conform to laws 
may tell, though slowly. And if in no other way, yet, 
as facilitating revision, a knowledge of the thing to be 
achieved — a clear idea of what constitutes a beauty, and 
what a blemish — cannot fail to be of service. 

~No general theory of expression seems yet to have 
been enunciated. The maxims contained in works on 
composition and rhetoric, are presented in an unorganized 
form. Standing as isolated dogmas — as empirical gener- 
alizations, they are neither so clearly apprehended, nor sc 
much respected, as they would be were they dedi 
from some simple first principle. AY~e are told that 
"brevity is the soul of wit." We hear styles condemned 
as verbose or involved. Blair says that every net 
part of a sentence M interrupts the description and i 
the image;" and again, that "long sentences fatigue the 
reader's attention." It is remarked by Lord Kaimes, that 
"to give the utmost force to a period, it ought, if possible, 
to be closed with the word that makes the greatest figure." 
That parentheses should be avoided and that Saxon words 
should be used in preference to those of Latin origin, are 
established precepts. But, however influential the truths 
thus dogmatically embodied, they would be much more 
influential if reduced to something like scientific ordina- 
tion. In this, as in other cases, conviction will be great lv 
strengthened when we understand the why. And we may 
be sure that a comprehension of the general principle from 
which the rules of composition result, will not only bring 
them home to us with greater force, but will disoOYer tc 
us other rules of like origin. 



11 



On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these 
current maxims, we may see shadowed forth in many of 
them, the importance of economizing the reader's or heal- 
er's attention. To so present ideas that they may be 
apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the 
desideratum towards which most of the rules above 
quoted point. When we condemn writing that is wordy, 
or confused, or intricate — when we praise this style as 
easy, and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or un- 
consciously assume this desideratum as our standard of 
judgment. Regarding language as an apparatus of sym- 
bols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that, as 
in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better 
arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced. 
In either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine 
is deducted from the result. A reader or listener has at 
each moment but a limited amount of mental power, 
available. To recognize and interpret the symbols pre- 
sented to him, requires part of this power ; to arrange and 
combine the images suggested requires a further part ; and 
only that part which remains can be used for realizing the 
thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention 
it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less 
time and attention can be given to the contained idea ; 
and the less vividly will that idea be conceived. 

How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance 
to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we 
shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative 
force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. 
To say, " Leave the room," is less expressive than to point 
to the door. Placing a finger on the lips is more forcible 
than whispering, " Do not speak." A beck of the hand is 
better than, " Come here." No phrase can convey the 
idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising 
the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much 



12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

by translation into words. Again, it may be remarked 
that when oral language is employed, the strongest effects 
are produced by interjections, which condense entire sen- 
tences into syllables. And in other cases, where custom 
allows us to express thoughts by single words, as in Be- 
ware, Heiglio, Fudge, much force would be lost by ex- 
panding them into specific propositions. Hence, carrying 
out the metaphor that language is the vehicle of thought, 
there seems reason to think that in all cases the friction 
and inertia of the vehicle deduct from its efficiency ; and 
that in composition, the chief, if not the sole thing to be 
done, is, to reduce this friction and inertia to the smallest 
possible amount. Let us then inquire whether economy 
of the recipient's attention is not the secret of effect, alike 
in the right choice and collocation of words, in the best 
arrangement of clauses in a sentence, in the proper order 
of its principal and subordinate propositions, in the judi- 
cious use of simile, metaphor, and other figures of speech, 
and even in the rhythmical sequence of syllal 

The greater forcibleness of Saxon English, or rather 
non-Latin English, first claims our attention. The several 
special reasons assignable for this may all be reduced to 
the general reason — economy. The most important of 
them is early association. A child's vocabulary is a 1 . 
wholly Saxon. He says, I have, not I jioss^ss — I 
not I desire ; he does not reflect, he tit inks ; lie does not 
beg for amusement, but for play ; he calls things nice or 
nasty, not pleasant or disagreeable. The synonym- 
which he learns in after years, never become 
organically connected with the ideas signified, as Jo t 
original words used in childhood; and hence the associa- 
tion remains less strong. But in what d - 
association between a word and an idea differ from a weak 
one? Simply in the greater ease and rapidity of the 
It can be in nothing else. Both of 



ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF SAXON WORDS. 13 

two words, if they be strictly synonymous, eventually call 
up the same image. The expression — It is acid, must in 
the end give rise to the same thought as — It is sour y but 
because the term acid was learnt later in life, and has not 
been so often followed by the thought symbolized, it does 
not so readily arouse that thought as the term sour. If 
we remember how slowly and with what labour the 
appropriate ideas follow unfamiliar words in another lan- 
guage, and how increasing familiarity with such words 
brings greater rapidity and ease of comprehension ; and 
if we consider that the same process must have gone on 
with the words of our mother tongue from childhood up- 
wards, we shall clearly see that the earliest learnt and 
oftenest used words, will, other things equal, call up 
images with less loss of time and energy than their later 
learnt synonyms. 

The further superiority possessed by Saxon English in 
its comparative brevity, obviously comes under the same 
generalization. If it be an advantage to exjDress an idea 
in the smallest number of words, then will it be an advan- 
tage to express it in the smallest number of syllables. If 
circuitous phrases and needless expletives distract the 
attention and diminish the strength of the impression pro- 
duced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain 
effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be 
required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as 
all know, it is tiresome to listen to an indistinct speaker, 
or read a badly-written manuscript ; and if, as we cannot 
doubt, the fatigue is a cumulative result of the attention 
needed to catch successive syllables ; it follows that atten- 
tion is in such cases absorbed by each syllable. And if this 
be true when the syllables are difficult of recognition, it 
will also be true, though in-a less degree, when the recogni- 
tion of them is easy. Hence, the shortness of Saxon words 
becomes a reason for their greater force. One qualification 



14: THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

however, must not be overlooked. A word which in itself 
embodies the most important part of the idea to be convey- 
ed, especially when that idea is an emotional one, may often 
with, advantage be a polysyllabic word. Tims it seems 
more forcible to say, " It is magnificent" than " It is 
grand.'''' The word vast is not so powerful a one as stio- 
pendous. Calling a thing nasty is not so effective as call- 
ing it disgusting. 

There seem to be several causes for this exceptional 
superiority of certain long words. We may ascribe it 
partly to the fact that a voluminous, mouth-filling epithet 
is, by its very size, suggestive of largeness or strength ; 
witness the immense pomposity of sesquipedalian veil . 
and when great power or intensity has to be sugg. - 
this association of ideas aids the effect. A further cause 
maybe that a word of several syllables admits of i 
emphatic articulation; and as emphatic articulation is a 
sign of emotion, the unusual impressiveness of the thing 
named is implied by it. Yet another cause is that a Long 
word (of which the latter syllables are generally inferred 
as soon as the first are spoken) allows the hearer's con- 
sciousness a longer time to dwell upon the quality pred- 
icated; and where, as in the above cases, it is to this pred- 
icated quality that the entire attention is called, an advan- 
tage results from keeping it before the mind for an appre- 
ciable time. The reasons which we have given for \ 're- 
ferring short words evidently do not hold fa that 
to make our generalization quite correct we must say, 
that while in certain sentences expressing Btrong feeling, 
the word which more especially implies that feeling may 
often with advantage be a many-syllabled or Latin one; in 
the immense majority of cases, each word serving but 
as a step to the idea embodied by the whole sentence, 
should, if possible, be a one-syllabled or Saxon one. 

Once more, that frequent cause of strength in S 



PRODUCTION OF VIVID IMPRESSIONS. 15 

and other primitive words — their imitative character, may 
be similarly resolved into the more general cause. Both 
those directly imitative, as splash, bang, whiz, roar, &c, 
and those analogically imitative, as rough, smooth, keen, 
blunt, thin, hard, crag, &c, have a greater or less likeness 
to the things symbolized ; and by making on the senses 
impressions allied to the ideas to be called up, they save 
part of the effort needed to call up such ideas, and leave 
more attention for the ideas themselves. 

The economy of the recipient's mental energy, into 
which are thus resolvable the several causes of the strength 
of Saxon English, may equally be traced in the superior- 
ity of specific over generic words. That concrete terms 
produce more vivid impressions than abstract ones, and 
should, when possible, be used instead, is a current max- 
im of composition. As Dr. Campbell says, "The more 
general the terms are, the picture is the fainter ; the more 
special they are, the brighter." We should avoid such a 
sentence as : 

In proportion as the manners, customs, and amuse- 
ments of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations 
of their penal code will be severe. 

And in place of it we should write : 

In proportion as men delight in battles, bull-fights, 

and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, 
burning, and the rack. 

This superiority of specific expressions is clearly due 
to a saving of the effort required to translate words intc 
thoughts. As we do not think in generals but in particu- 
lars — as, whenever any class of things is referred to, we 
represent it to ourselves by calling to mind individual 
members of it ; it follows that when an abstract word is 
used, the hearer or reader has to choose from his stock of 
images, one or more, by which he may figure to himself 
the genus mentioned. In doing this, some delay must 



IQ THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

arise — some force be expended; and if, by employing a 
specific term, an appropriate image can be at once suggest- 
ed, an economy is achieved, and a more vivid impression 
produced. 

Turning now from the choice of words to their se- 
quence, we shall find the same general principle hold 
good. We have d priori reasons for believing that in 
every sentence there is some one order of words more 
effective than any other ; and that this order is the one 
which presents the elements of the proposition in the suc- 
cession in which they may be most readily put together. 
As in a narrative, the events should be stated in such se- 
quence that the mind may not have to go backwards and 
forwards in order to rightly connect them ; as in a group 
of sentences, the arrangement should be such, that each of 
them may be understood as it comes, without waiting 
for subsequent ones ; so in every sentence, the sequence of 
words should be that which suggests the constituent b of 
the thought in the order most convenient for the building 
up that thought. Duly to enforce this truth, and to pre- 
pare the way for applications of it, we must briefly inquire 
into the mental act by which the meaning of a 
words is apprehended. 

We cannot more simply do this than by considering the 
proper collocation of the substantive and adjective. 1< it 
better to place the adjective before the substantive, or the 
substantive before the adjective? Ought we to say with 
the French — un cheval noir ; or to say as avc do — a black 
horse? Probably, most persons of culture would decide 
that one order is as good as the other. Alive to the bias 
produced by habit, they would ascribe to that the pr 
ence they feel for our own form ot % expression. Thev 
would expect those educated in the use of the opp 
form to have an equal preference for that. And thus they 
would conclude that neither of these instinctive judgments 



LOCATION OF ADJECTIVES. 17 

is of any -worth. There is, however, a philosophical 
ground for deciding in favour of the English custom. If 
" a horse black " be the arrangement, immediately on the 
utterance of the word " horse," there arises, or tends to 
arise, in the mind, a picture answering to that word ; and 
as there has been nothing to indicate what hind of horse, 
any image of a horse suggests itself. Very likely, how- 
ever, the image will be that of a brown horse : brown 
horses being the most familiar. The result is that when 
the word " black " is added, a check is given to the pro- 
cess of thought. Either the picture of a brown horse 
already present to the imagination has to be suppressed, 
and the picture of a black one summoned in its place ; or 
else, if the picture of a brown horse be yet unformed, the 
tendency to form it has to be stopped. Whichever is the 
case, a certain amount of hindrance results. But if, on 
the other hand, " a black horse " be the expression used, 
no such mistake can be made. The word " black," indi- 
cating an abstract quality, arouses no definite idea. It 
simply prepares the mind for conceiving some object of 
that colour; and the attention is kept suspended until 
that object is known. If, then, by the precedence of the 
adjective, the idea is conveyed without liability to error, 
whereas the precedence of the substantive is apt to pro- 
duce a misconception ; it follows that the one gives the 
mind less trouble than the other, and is therefore more 
forcible. 

Possibly it will be objected that the adjective and 
substantive come so close together, that practically they 
may be considered as uttered at the same moment ; and 
that on hearing the phrase, " a horse black," there is not 
time to imagine a wrongly-coloured horse before the word 
" black " follows to prevent it. It must be owned that it 
is not easy to decide by introspection whether this is so 
or not. But there are facts collaterally implying that it 



18 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

is not. Our ability to anticipate the words yet unspoken 
is one of them. If the ideas of the hearer kept considera- 
bly behind the expressions of the speaker, as the objection 
assumes, he could hardly foresee the end of a sentence by 
the time it was half delivered : yet this constantly hap- 
pens. Were the supposition true, the mind, instead of 
anticipating, would be continually falling more and more 
in arrear. If the meanings of words are not realized as 
fast as the words are uttered, then the loss of time over 
each word must entail such an accumulation of delays as to 
leave a hearer entirely behind. But whether the force of 
these replies be or be not admitted, it will scarcely be denied 
that the right formation of a picture will be fiicilitated by 
presenting its elements in the order in which they arc 
wanted; even though the mind should do nothing until it 
has received them all. 

What is here said respecting the succession of the 
adjective and substantive is obviously applicable, by 
change of terms, to the adverb and verb. And without 
further explanation, it will be manifest, that in the use 
of prepositions and other particles, most languages spon- 
taneously conform with more or less completeness to this 
law. 

On applying a like analysis to the larger divisions of a 
sentence, we find not only that the same principle holds 
good, but that the advantage of respecting it becomes 
marked. In the arrangement of predicate and subject, for 
example, we are at once shown that as the predicate 
determines the aspect under which the subject is to be 
conceived, it should be placed first ; and the striking effect 
produced by so placing it becomes comprehensible. Take 
the often-quoted contrast between — " Great is Diana of 
the Ephesians," and — "Diana of the Ephesians is great. n 
When the first arrangement is used, the utterance of the 
word "great" arouses those vague associations of an fan 



ARRANGEMENT OF PREDICATE AND SUBJECT. 19 

pressive nature with which it has been habitually connect- 
ed ; the imagination is prepared to clothe with high attri- 
butes whatever follows; and when the words, "Diana of the 
Ephesians," are heard, all the appropriate imagery which 
can, on the instant, be summoned, is used in the formation of 
the picture : the mind being thus led directly, and with- 
out error, to the intended impression. When, on the con- 
trary, the reverse order is followed, the idea, " Diana of 
the Ephesians," is conceived with no special reference to 
greatness ; and when the words, " is great," are added, 
the conception has to be remodelled : whence arises a loss 
of mental energy, and a corresponding diminution of 
effect. The following verse from Coleridge's "Ancient 
Mariner," though somewhat irregular in structure, well 
illustrates the same truth : 

"Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
Alone on a wide wide sea ! 
And never a saint took pity on 
My soul in agony." 

Of course the principle equally applies when the predi- 
cate is a verb or a participle. And as effect is gained by 
placing first all words indicating the quality, conduct, or 
condition of the subject, it follows that the copula also 
should have precedence. It is true, that the general habit 
of our language resists this arrangement of predicate, 
copula, and subject ; but we may readily find instances of 
the additional force gained by conforming to it. Thus in 
the line from " Julius Caesar " — 

" Then lurst this mighty heart," 

priority is given to a word embodying both predicate and 
copula. In a passage contained in " The Battle of Flod- 
den Field," the like order is systematically employed with 
great effect : 



20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

" The Border slogan rent the sky! 
A Home! a Gordon I was the cry; 
Loud were the clanging blows : 
Advanced,— forced back, — now loir, now liigh. 

The pennon snnk and rose ; 
As bends the bark's mast in the gale 
When rent are rigging, shronds, and sail, 

It wavered 'mid the foes." 

Pursuing the principle yet further, it is obvious that 
for producing the greatest effect, not only should the main 
divisions of a sentence observe this sequence, but the sub- 
divisions of these should be similarly arranged. In nearly 
all cases, the predicate is accompanied by some limit or 
qualification called its complement. Commonly, also, the 
circumstances of the subject, which form its complement, 
have to be specified. And as these qualifications and cir- 
cumstances must determine the mode in which the acts 
and things they belong to are conceived, precedence should 
be given to them. Lord Kaimes notices the fact that this 
order is preferable ; though without giving the reason. 
He says: — "When a circumstance is placed at the 1 
ning of the period, or near the beginning, the transition 
from it to the principal subject is agreeable : is lik 
cending or going upward." A sentence arranged in illus- 
tration of this will be desirable. Here is one : 

Whatever it may be in theory, it is clear that in 

practice the French idea of liberty is — the right of every 
man to be master of the rest. 

In this case, were the first two clauses, up to the word 
"practice" inclusive, which quality the subject, to be 
placed at the end instead of the beginning, much of the 
force would be lost ; as thus : 

The French idea of liberty is — the right of every 

man to be master of the rest ; in practice at least, if not 
in theory. 



OEDEE OF THE PAETS OF SENTENCES. 21 

Similarly with respect to tlie conditions under which 
any fact is predicated. Observe in the following example 
the effect of putting them last : 

How immense would be the stimulus to progress, 

were the honour now given to wealth and title given ex- 
clusively to high achievements and intrinsic worth ! 

And then observe the superior effect of putting them 
first: 

Were the honour now given to wealth and title 

given exclusively to high achievements and intrinsic worth, 
how immense would be the stimulus to progress ! 

The effect of giving priority to the complement of the 
predicate, as well as the predicate itself, is finely displayed 
in the opening of " Hyperion " : 

" Deep in the shady sadness of a vale 
Far sunlcen from the healthy oreath of morn, 
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star 
Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone." 

Here it will be observed, not only that the predicate 
" sat " precedes the subject " Saturn," and that the three 
lines in italics, constituting the complement of the predi- 
cate, come before it; but that in the structure of that 
complement also, the same order is followed: each line 
being so arranged that the qualifying words are placed 
before the words suggesting concrete images. 

The right succession of the principal and subordinate 
propositions in a sentence manifestly depends on the same 
law. Regard for economy of the recipient's attention, 
which, as we find, determines the best order for the sub- 
ject, copula, predicate, and their complements, dictates 
that the subordinate proposition shall precede the princi- 
pal one, when the sentence includes two. Containing, as 
the subordinate proposition does, some qualifying or ex 
planatory idea, its priority prevents misconception of the 



22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

principal one ; and therefore saves the mental effort needed 
to correct such misconception. This will be seen in the 
annexed example. 

The secresy once maintained in respect to the par- 
liamentary debates, is still thought needful in diplomacy 
and in virtue of this secret diplomacy, England may any 
day be unawares betrayed by its ministers into a war cost- 
ing a hundred thousand lives, and hundreds of millions of 
treasure: yet the English pique themselves on being a 
self-governed people. 

The two subordinate propositions, ending with the 
semicolon and colon respectively, almost wholly determine 
the meaning of the principal proposition with which it 
concludes; and the effect would be lost were they placed 
last instead of first. 

The general principle of right arrangement in sen 
fences, which we have traced in its application to the lead- 
ing divisions of them, equally determines the proper order 
of their minor divisions. In every sentence of any com- 
plexity the complement to the subject contains several 
clauses, and that to the predicate several others ; and 
these may be arranged in greater or less conformity to the 
law of easy apprehension. Of course with these, as with 
the larger members, the succession should be from th< 
specific to the more specific — from the abstract to the con- 
crete. 

Now, however, we must notice a further condition to 
be fulfilled in the proper construction of a sentence ; but 
still a condition dictated by the same general principle 
with the other: the condition, namely, that the words and 
expressions most nearly related in thought shall be brought 
the closest together. Evidently the single words, tbe 
minor clauses, and the leading divisions of every proposi- 
tion, severally qualify each other. The longer the time 
that elapses between the mention of any qualifying mem- 



COMBINING THE MEMBERS OF A SENTENCE. 23 

ber and the member qualified, the longer must the mind 
be exerted in carrying forward the qualifying member 
ready for use. And the more numerous the qualifications 
to be simultaneously remembered and rightly applied, 
the greater will be the mental power expended, and the 
smaller the effect produced. Hence, other things equal, 
force will be gained by so arranging the members of a 
sentence that these suspensions shall at any moment be 
the fewest in number ; and shall also be of the shortest 
duration. The following is an instance of defective com- 
bination : 

A modern newspaper-statement, though probably 

true, would be laughed at, if quoted in a book as testi- 
mony ; but the letter of a court gossip is thought good 
historical evidence, if written some centuries ago. 

A rearrangement of this, in accordance with the prin- 
ciple indicated above, will be found to increase the effect. 
Thus: 

Though probably true, a modern newspaper-state- 
ment quoted in a book as testimony, would be laughed 
at ; but the letter of a court gossip, if written some cen- 
turies ago, is thought good historical evidence. 

By making this change, some of the suspensions are 
avoided and others shortened ; while there is less liability 
to produce premature conceptions. The passage quoted 
below from " Paradise Lost " affords a fine instance of a 
sentence well arranged ; alike in the priority of the sub- 
ordinate members, in the avoidance of long and numerous 
suspensions, and in the correspondence between the order 
of the clauses and the sequence of the phenomena de- 
scribed, which, by the way, is a further prerequisite to 
easy comprehension, and therefore to effect. 

11 As when a prowling wolf, 
"Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, 
2 



24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve 
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, 
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold : 
Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash 
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, 
Cross-barr'd, and bolted fast, fear no assault, 
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles : 
So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold ; 
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.'" 

The habitual use of sentences in which ail or most of 
the descriptive and limiting elements precede those de- 
scribed and limited, gives rise to what is called the in- 
verted style: a title which is, however, by no means con- 
fined to this structure, but is often used where Hie order 
of the words is simply unusual. A more appropriate title 
would be the direct style, as contrasted with the other, or 
indirect style: the peculiarity of the one being, that it 
conveys each thought into the mind step by step with lit- 
tle liability to error; and of the other, that it gets the 
right thought conceived by a series of approximations. 

The superiority of the direct over the indirect form of 
sentence, implied by the several conclusions that have 
been drawn, must not, however, be affirmed without res- 
ervation. Though, up to a certain point, it is well for the 
qualifying clauses of a period to precede those qualified ; 
yet, as carrying forward each qualifying clause costs some 
mental effort, it follows that when the number of them 
and the time they are carried become great, we reach a 
limit beyond which more is lost than is gained. Other 
things equal, the arrangement should be such that no con- 
crete image shall be suggested until the materials out of 
which it is to be made have been presented. And yet, as 
lately pointed out, other things equal, the fewer the ma- 
terials to be held at once, and the shorter the distance 
they have to be borne, the better. Hence in some i 



MUST VARY WITH THE MINT) ADDRESSED. 25 

it becomes a question whether most mental effort will be 
entailed by the many and long suspensions, or by the cor- 
rection of successive misconceptions. 

This question may sometimes be decided by consider- 
ing the capacity of the persons addressed. A greater 
grasp of mind is required for the ready comprehension of 
thoughts expressed in the direct manner, where the sen- 
tences are anywise intricate. To recollect a number of 
preliminaries stated in elucidation of a coming idea, and 
to apply them all to the formation of it when suggested, 
demands a good memory and considerable power of con- 
centration. To one possessing these, the direct method 
will mostly seem the best ; while to one deficient in them 
it will seem the worst. Just as it may cost a strong man 
less effort to carry a hundred- weight from place to place 
at once, than by a stone at a time ; so, to an active mind 
it may be easier to bear along all the qualifications of an 
idea and at once rightly form it when named, than to first 
imperfectly conceive such idea, and then carry back to it, 
one by one, the details and limitations afterwards men- 
tioned. While conversely, as for a boy the only possible 
mode of transferring a hundred- weight, is that of taking 
it in portions ; so, for a weak mind, the only possible mode 
of forming a compound conception may be that of build- 
ing it up by carrying separately its several parts. 

That the indirect method — the method of conveying 
the meaning by a series of approximations — is best fitted 
for the uncultivated, may indeed be inferred from their 
habitual use of it. The form of expression adopted by 
the savage, as in — " Water, give me," is the simplest type 
of the approximate arrangement. In pleonasms, which 
arc comparatively prevalent among the uneducated, the 
same essential structure is seen ; as, for instance, in — " The 
men, they were there." Again, the old possessive case — 
M The king, his crown," conforms to the like order of . 



26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

thought. Moreover, the fact that the indirect mode is 
called the natural one, implies that it is the one sponta 
neously employed, by the common people: that is — the 
one easiest for undisciplined, minds. 

There are many cases, however, in which neither the 
direct nor the indirect structure is the best ; but where an 
intermediate structure is preferable to both. When the 
number of circumstances and qualifications to be included 
in the sentence is great, the most judicious course is nei- 
ther to enumerate them all before introducing the idea to 
which they belong, nor to put this idea first and let it be 
remodelled to agree with the particulars afterwards men- 
tioned; but to do a little of each. Take a case. It is 
desirable to avoid so extremely indirect an arrangement 
as the following : 

"We came to our journey's end, at last, with no 

small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep i 
and bad weather." 

Yet to transform this into an entirely indirect sentence 
would not produce a satisfactory effect ; as witness: — 

At last, with no small difficulty, after much fa- 
tigue, through deep roads, and bad weather, we came to 
our journey's end. 

Dr. TThately, from whom we quote the first of these 
two arrangements, proposes this construction : — 

"At last, after much fatigue, through deep roads 

and bad weather, we came, with no small difficulty, to our 
journey's end." 

Here it will be observed that by introducing the words 
"we came" a little earlier in the sentence, the labour of 
carrying forward so many particulars is diminished, and 
the subsequent qualification "with no small difficulty" 
entails an addition to the thought that is very easily made. 
But a further improvement may be produced by intro- 
ducing the words "we came" still earlier; especially if at 



THE ABSTRACT SHOULD PRECEDE THE CONCRETE. 27 

the same time the qualifications be rearranged in conform- 
ity with the principle already explained, that the more 
abstract elements of the thought should come before the 
more concrete. Observe the better effect obtained by 
making these two changes : 

At last, with no small difficulty, and after much 

fatigue, we came, through deep roads and bad weather, to 
our journey's end. 

This reads with comparative smoothness; that is — 
with less hindrance from suspensions and reconstructions 
of thought — with less mental effort. 

Before dismissing this branch of our subject, it should 
be further remarked, that even when addressing the most 
vigorous intellects, the direct style is unfit for communi- 
cating ideas of a complex or abstract character. So long 
as the mind has not much to do, it may be well able to 
grasp all the preparatory clauses of a sentence, and to use 
them effectively; but if some subtlety in the argument 
absorb the attention — if every faculty be strained in en- 
deavouring to catch the speaker's or writer's drift, it may 
happen that the mind, unable to carry on both processes 
at once, will break down, and allow the elements of the 
thought to lapse into confusion. 

Turning now to consider figures of speech, we may 
equally discern the same general law of effect. Underlying 
all the rules given for the choice and right use of them, 
we shall find the same fundamental requirement — economy 
of attention. It is indeed chiefly because they so well 
subserve this requirement, that figures of speech are em- 
ployed. To bring the mind more easily to the desired 
conception, is in many cases solely, and in all cases mainly, 
their object. 

Let us begin with the figure called Synechdoche. The 
advantage sometimes gained by putting a part for the 



28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

whole, is due to the more convenient, or more accurate, 
presentation of the idea. If, instead of saying " a fleet of 
ten ships," we say " a fleet of ten sail" the picture of a 
group of vessels at sea is more readily suggested; and is so 
because the sails constitute the most conspicuous parts of 
vessels so circumstanced : whereas the word sJt ips would 
very likely remind us of vessels in dock. Again, to say, 
" All hands to the pumps," is better than to say, " All 
men to the pumps ;" as it suggests the men in the special 
attitude intended, and so saves effort. Bringing "gray 
hairs with sorrow to the grave," is another expression, the 
effect of which has the same cause. 

The occasional increase of force produced by Metony- 
my may be similarly accounted for. " The low morality 
of the bar" is a phrase both more brief and significant 
than the literal one it stands for. A belief in the ultimate 
supremacy of intelligence over brute force, is conveyed in 
a more concrete, and therefore more realizable form, if we 
substitute the pen and the sword for the two abstract 
terms. To say, " Beware of drinking !" is less effective 
than to say, " Beware of the bottle /" and is so, clearly 
because it calls up a less specific image. 

The Simile is in many cases used chiefly with a view 
to ornament ; but whenever it increases \\\q force of a pas- 
sage, it does so by being an economy. Here is an instance : 

The illusion that great men and great events came 

oftener in early times than now, is partly due to historical 
perspective. As in a range of equidistant columns, the 
furthest off look the closest ; so, the conspicuous objects 
of the past seem more thickly clustered the more remote 
they are. 

To construct by a process of literal explanation, the 
thought thus conveyed, would take many sentences ; and 
the first elements of the picture would become faint while 
the imagination was busy in adding the others. But by 



EFFECT OF FIGURES OF SPEECH. 29 

the help of a comparison all effort is saved ; the picture is 
distantly realized, and its full effect produced. 

Of the position of the Simile,* it needs only to remark, 
that what has been said respecting the order of the ad- 
jective and substantive, predicate and subject, principal 
and subordinate propositions, &c, is applicable here. As 
whatever qualifies should precede whatever is qualified, 
force will generally be gained by placing the simile before 
the object to which it is applied. That this arrangement 
is the best, may be seen in the following passage from the 
"Lady of the Lake":— 

" As wreath of snow, on mountain breast, 
Slides from the rock that gave it rest, 
Poor Ellen glided from her stay, 
And at the monarch's feet she lay." 

Inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the ef- 
fect considerably. There are cases, however, even where 
the simile is a simple one, in which it may with advantage 
be placed last ; as in these lines from Alexander Smith's 
" Life Drama " :— 

" I see the future stretch 
All dark and barren as a rainy sea." 

The reason for this seems to be, that so abstract an 
idea as that attaching to the word " future," does not pre- 
sent itself to the mind in any definite form ; and hence 
the subsequent arrival at the simile entails no reconstruc- 
tion of the thought. 

Such, however, are not the only cases in which this or- 

* Properly the term " simile " is applicable only to the entire figure, in- 
clusive of the two things compared and the comparison drawn between 
them. But as there exists no name for the illustrative member of the fig« 
ure, there seems no alternative but to employ " simile " to express this also 
This context will in each case show in which sense the word is used. 



30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

der is the most forcible. As the advantage of putting the 
simile before the object depends on its being carried for- 
ward in the mind to assist in forming an image of the ob- 
ject ; it must happen that if, from length or complexity, 
it cannot be so carried forward, the advantage is not 
gained. The annexed sonnet, by Coleridge, is defective 
from this cause : 

" As when a child, on some long -winter's night, 
Affrighted, clinging to its grandanfs knees, 
"With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight 
Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees, 
Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell ; 
Or of those hags who at the witching time 
Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime, 
And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell ; 
Cold horror drinks its blood ! Anon the tear 
More gentle starts, to hear the beldame tell 
Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, 
Murder'd by cruel uncle's mandate fell : 
Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, 
Ev'n so, thou, Siddons, meltest my sad heart." 

Here, from the lapse of time and accumulation of cir- 
cumstances, the first part of the comparison is forgotten 
before its application is reached ; and requires re-reading. 
Had the main idea been first mentioned, less effort would 
have been required to retain it, and to modify the concep- 
tion of it into harmony with the comparison, than to re- 
member the comparison, and refer back to its successive 
features for help in forming the final image. 

The superiority of the Metaphor to the Simile is as- 
cribed by Dr. TThately to the fact that " all men are more 
gratified at catching the resemblance for themselves, than 
in having it pointed out to them.'* But after what has 
been said, the great economy it achieves will seem the 
more probable cause. Lear's exclamation — 



ECONOMIC EFFECT OF THE METAPHOR. 31 

" Ingratitude ! thou marble-hearted fiend," 
would lose part of its effect were it changed into — 

" Ingratitude ! thou fiend with heart like marble j" 

and the loss would result partly from the position of the 
simile and partly from the extra number of words required. 
When the comparison is an involved one, the greater force 
of the metaphor, consequent on its greater brevity, be- 
comes much more conspicuous. If, drawing an analogy 
between mental and physical phenomena, we say, 

As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white 

light are decomposed into the colours of the rainbow ; so, 
in traversing the soul of the poet, the colourless rays of 

truth are transformed into brightly-tinted poetry ; 

it is clear that in receiving the double set of words ex- 
pressing the two halves of the comparison, and in carry- 
ing the one half to the other, considerable attention is 
absorbed. Most of this is saved, however, by putting the 
comparison in a metaphorical form, thus : 

The white light of truth, in traversing the many- 
sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris- 
hued poetry. 

How much is conveyed in a few words by the help of 
the Metaphor, and how vivid the effect consequently pro- 
duced, may be abundantly exemplified. From "A Life 
Drama " may be quoted the phrase, 

" I spear'd him with a jest," 

as a fine instance among the many which that poem con- 
tains. A passage in the " Prometheus Unbound," of Shel- 
ley, displays the power of the metaphor to great advan- 
tage : 

" Methought among the lawns together 
We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, 
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds 



32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains 
Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind. 1 ' 

This last expression is remarkable for the distinctness 
with which it realizes the features of the scene : bringing 
the mind, as it were, by a bound to the desired conception. 

But a limit is put to the advantageous use of the Meta- 
phor, by the condition that it must be sufficiently simple 
to be understood from a hint. Evidently, if there be any 
obscurity in the meaning or application of it, no economy 
of attention will be gained ; but rather the reverse. 
Hence, when the comparison is complex, it is usual to 
have recourse to the Simile. There is, however, a species 
of figure, sometimes classed under Allegory, but which 
might, perhaps, be better called Compound Metaphor, that 
enables us to retain the brevity of the metaphorical form 
even where the analogy is intricate. This is done by indi- 
cating the application of the figure at the outset, and then 
leaving the mind to continue the parallel. Emerson has 
employed it with great effect in the first of his " Lectures 
on the Times " : 

" The main interest which any aspects of the Times can have 
for us, is the great spirit which gazes through them, the light 
which they can shed on the wonderful questions, What are we, 
and Whither do we tend? We do not wish to be deceived. Here 
we drift, like white sail across the wild ocean, now bright on the 
wave, now darkling in the trough of the sea ; but from what port 
did we sail? Who knows? Or to what port are we bound? 
Who knows ? There is no one to tell us but such poor weather- 
tossed mariners as ourselves, whom we speak as we pass, or who 
have hoisted some signal, or floated to us some letter in a bottle 
from afar. But what know they more than we ? They also found 
themselves on this wondrous sea. No; from the older sailors 
nothing. Over all their speaking-trumpets the gray sea and the 
loud winds answer — Xot in us ; not in Time." 

The division of the Simile from the Metaphor is by no 



FIGURES COMPLETED BY THE READER. 33 

means a definite one. Between the one extreme in which 
the two elements of the comparison are detailed at full 
length and the analogy pointed out, and the other extreme 
in which the comparison is implied instead of stated, come 
intermediate forms, in which the comparison is partly 
stated and partly implied. For instance : 

Astonished at the performances of the English 

plough, the Hindoos paint it, set it up, and worship it ; 
thus turning a tool into an idol: linguists do the same 
with language. 

There is an evident advantage in leaving the reader or 
hearer to complete the figure. And generally these inter- 
mediate forms are good in proportion as they do this ; pro- 
vided the mode of completing it be obvious. 

Passing over much that may be said of like purport 
upon Hyperbole, Personification, Apostrophe, &c, let us 
close our remarks upon construction by a typical example 
The general principle which has been enunciated is, that 
other things equal, the force of all verbal forms and ar- 
rangements is great, in proportion as the time and mental 
effort they demand from the recipient is small. The corol- 
laries from this general principle have been- severally illus- 
trated ; and it has been shown that the relative goodness 
of any two modes of expressing an idea, may be deter- 
mined by observing which requires the shortest process of 
thought for its comprehension. But though conformity 
in particular points has been exemplified, no cases of com- 
plete conformity have yet been quoted. It is indeed dim- 
cult to find them ; for the English idiom does not com- 
monly permit the order which theory dictates. A few, 
however, occur in Ossian. Here is one : 

"As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, so 
towards each other approached the heroes. As two dark streams 
from high rocks meet and mix, and roar on the plain : loud, rough, 
and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Inisfail. * * * As the 



B4: THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high ; as the 
last peal of the thunder of heaven ; such is noise of the battle." 

Except in the position of the verb in the first two sim- 
ilies, the theoretically best arrangement is fully carried 
out in each of these sentences. The simile comes before 
the qualified image, the adjectives before the substantives, 
the predicate and copula before the subject, and their re- 
spective complements before them. That the passage is 
open to the charge of being bombastic proves nothing 
rather, proves our case. For what is bombast but a force 
of expression too great for the magnitude of the ideas em- 
bodied? All that may rightly be inferred is, that only in 
very rare cases, and then only to produce a climax, should 
all the conditions of effective expression be fulfilled. 

Passing on to a more complex application of the 
trine with which we set out, it must now be remarked, 
that not only in the structure of sentences, and the u<e 
of figures of speech, may economy of the recipient's men- 
tal energy be assigned as the cause of force ; bnt that in 
the choice and arrangement of the minor images, out of 
which some large thought is to be built up, we may trace 
the same condition to effect. To select from the senti- 
ment, scene, or event described, those typical elements 
which carry many others along with them ; and so, by 
saying a few things but suggesting many, to abridge the 
description; is the secret of producing a vivid impression. 
An extract from Tennyson's "Mariana" will well illus- 
trate this : 

'All day within the dreamy fa 
The door upon the hinges creaked. 
The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mOQM 
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked. 
Or from the crevice peered about/' 



THE SECRET OF VTYTD IMPRESSIONS. 35 

The several circumstances here specified bring with 
them many appropriate associations. Our attention is 
rarely drawn by the buzzing of a fly in the window, save 
when every thing is still. While the inmates are moving 
about the house, mice usually keep silence ; and it is only 
when extreme quietness reigns that they peep from their 
retreats. Hence each of the facts mentioned, presuppos- 
ing numerous others, calls up these with more or less dis- 
tinctness ; and revives the feeling of dull solitude with 
which they are connected in our experience. Were 
all these facts detailed instead of suggested, the atten- 
tion would be so frittered away that little impression of 
dreariness would be produced. Similarly in other cases. 
Whatever the nature of the thought to be conveyed, this 
skilful selection of a few particulars which imply the rest, 
is the key to success. In the choice of competent ideas, 
as in the choice of expressions, the aim must be to convey 
the greatest quantity of thoughts with the smallest quan- 
tity of words. 

The same principle may in some cases be advanta- 
geously carried yet further, by indirectly suggesting some 
entirely distinct thought in addition to the one expressed. 
Thus if we say, 

The head of a good classic is as full of ancient 

myths, as that of a servant-girl of ghost stories ; 
it is manifest that besides the fact asserted, there is an 
implied opinion respecting the small value of classical 
knowledge : and as this implied opinion is recognized 
much sooner than it can be put into words, there is gain 
in omitting it. In other cases, again, great effect is pro- 
duced by an overt omission ; provided the nature of the 
idea left out is obvious. A good instance of this occurs 
in " Heroes and Hero-worship." After describing the way 
in which Burns was sacrificed to the idle curiosity of 
Lion-hunters — people who came not out of sympathy but 



36 THE PHILOSOPHY OP STYLE. 

merely to see him — people who sought a little amusement, 
and who got their amusement while " the Hero's life went 
for it !" Carlyle suggests a parallel thus : 

" Iiichter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind 
of Light-chafers,' large Fire-flies, which people stick upon 
spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons 
of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, 
which they much admire. Great honour to the Fire-flies! 
But—!—" 

Before inquiring whether the law of eiTeet, thus fai 
traced, explains the superiority of poetry to prose, it will 
be needful to notice some supplementary canses of f. »rce 
in expression, that have not yet been mentioned. 1 
are not, properly Bpeaking, additional causes : but rather 
secondary ones, originating from those already specified — ■ 
reflex results of them. In the first place, then, we may 
remark that mental excitement spontaneously prompts the 
use of those forms of speech which have been pointed out 
as the most effective. "Out witli him!" "Away with 
him !" are the natural utterances of angry citizens at a 
disturbed meeting. .V voyager, describu rrible 

storm he had witnessed, would rise t<> Borne Buch climax 
as — "Crack went the ropes and down came the no 
Astonishment may he heard expressed in the purs 
"Never was there such a si;_rht !" All of which sent' 
are, it will he observed, constructed after the direct type. 
Again, every one knows that excited pel given to 

figures of speech. The vituperation of the vnlgar abounds 
with them : often, indeed, consists of little els 
"brute," "gallows rogue,'' "cut-throat villain," these, and 
other like metaphors and metaphorical epithets, at 
call to mind a street quarrel. Further, it may he noticed 
that extreme brevity is another characteristic of pae 
ate language. The sentences are generally incomplete j 



PECTJLIAEITTES OF PASSIONATE LANGUAGE. 37 

the particles are omitted ; and frequently important words 
are left to be gathered from the context. Great admira- 
tion does not vent itself in a precise proposition, as — " It 
is beautiful ;" but in the simple exclamation, — " Beauti- 
ful !" He who, when reading a lawyer's letter, should 
say, " Yile rascal !" would be thought angry ; while, " He 
is a vile rascal," would imply comparative coolness. Thus 
we see that alike in the order of the words, in the fre- 
quent use of figures, and in extreme conciseness, the nat- 
ural utterances of excitement conform to the theoretical 
conditions of forcible expression. 

Hence, then, the higher forms of speech acquire a sec- 
ondary strength from association. Having, in actual life, 
habitually heard them in connection with vivid mental 
impressions ; and having been accustomed to meet with 
them in the most powerful writing ; they come to have in 
themselves a species of force. The emotions that have 
from time to time been produced by the strong thoughts 
wrapped up in these forms, are partially aroused by the 
forms themselves. They create a certain degree of anima- 
tion ; they induce a preparatory sympathy ; and when the 
striking ideas looked for are reached, they are the more 
vividly realized. 

The continuous use of these modes of expression that 
are alike forcible in themselves and forcible from their 
associations, produces the peculiarly impressive species of 
composition which we call poetry. Poetry, we shall find, 
habitually adopts those symbols of thought, and those 
methods of using them, which instinct and analysis agree 
in choosing as most effective ; and becomes poetry by vir- 
tue of doing this. On turning back to the various speci- 
mens that have been quoted, it will be seen that the direct 
or inverted form of sentence predominates in them ; and 
that to a degree quite inadmissible in prose. And not 
only in the frequency, but in what is termed the violence 



88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

of tlie inversions, will this distinction be remarked. In 
the abundant use of figures, again, we may recognize the 
same truth. Metaphors, similes, hyperboles, and personi- 
fications, are the poet's colours, which he has liberty to 
employ almost without limit. We characterize as " poet- 
ical " the prose which uses these appliances of language 
with any frequency ; and condemn it as " over florid " or 
" affected " long \ efore they occur with the profusion al- 
lowed in verse. Further, let it be remarked that in brev- 
ity — the other requisite of forcible expression which theory 
points out, and emotion spontaneously fulfils — poetical 
phraseology similarly differs from ordinary phraseology. 
Imperfect periods are frequent ; elisions are perpetual ; and 
many of the minor words, which would be deemed essen- 
tial in prose, are dispensed with. 

Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is espe- 
cially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of 
effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates 
the natural utterances of excitement. While the matter 
embodied is idealized emotion, the vehicle is the idealized 
language of emotion. As the musical composer catches 
the cadences in which our feelings of joy and sympathy, 
grief and despair, vent themselves, and out of these germs 
evolves melodies suggesting higher phases of these feel- 
ings ; so, the poet developes from the typical expressions 
in which men utter passion and sentiment, those choice 
forms of verbal combination in which concentrated passion 
and sentiment may be fitly presented. 

There is one peculiarity of poetry conducing much to 
its effect — the peculiarity which is indeed usually thought 
its characteristic one — still remaining to be considered : 
we mean its rhythmical structure. This, improbable 
though it seems, will be found to come under the same 
generalization with the others. Like each of them, it is 
an idealization of the natural language of strong emotion, 



CHARACTERISTICS OF RHYTHMICAL EXPRESSION. 39 

which is known to be more or less metrical if the emotion 
be not too violent ; and like each of them it is an economy 
of the reader's or hearer's attention. In the peculiar tone 
and manner we adopt in uttering versified language, may 
be discerned its relationship to the feelings ; and the pleas- 
ure which its measured movement gives us, is ascribable 
to the comparative ease with which words metrically ar- 
ranged can be recognized. 

This last position will scarcely be at once admitted ; 
but a little explanation will show its reasonableness. For 
if, as we have seen, there is an expenditure of mental 
energy in the mere act of listening to verbal articulations, 
or in that silent repetition of them which goes on in read- 
ing — if the perceptive faculties must be in active exercise 
to identify every syllable — then, any mode of so com- 
bining words as to present a regular recurrence of certain 
traits which the mind can anticipate, will diminish that 
strain upon the attention required by the total irregular- 
ity of prose. Just as the body, in receiving a series of 
varying concussions, must keep the muscles ready to meet 
the most violent of them, as not knowing when such may 
come ; so, the mind in receiving unarranged articulations, 
must keep its perceptives active enough to recognize the 
least easily caught sounds. And as, if the concussions 
recur in a definite order, the body may husband its forces 
by adjusting the resistance needful for each concussion ; 
so, if the syllables be rhythmically arranged, the mind 
may economize its energies by anticipating the attention 
required for each syllable. 

Far-fetched though this idea will perhaps be thought, 
a little introspection will countenance it. That we do 
take advantage of metrical language to adjust our percep- 
tive faculties to the force of the expected articulations, is 
clear from the fact that we are balked by halting versifi- 
cation. Much as at the bottom of a flight of stairs, a step 



LO THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

more or less than we counted upon gives us a shock ; so v 
too, does a misplaced accent or a supernumerary syllable. 
In the one case, we know that there is an erroneous pre- 
adjustment ; and we can scarcely doubt that there is one 
in the other. But if we habitually preadjust our percep- 
tions to the measured movement of verse, the physical 
analogy above given renders it probable that by so doing 
we economize attention ; and hence that metrical language 
is more effective than prose, because it enables us to do 
this. 

Were there space, it might be worth while to inquire 
whether the pleasure we take in rhyme, and also that 
which we take in euphony, are not partly aseribable to 
the same general cause. 

A few paragraphs only, can be devoted to a second 
division of our subject that here presents itself. To pur- 
sue in detail the laws of effect, as applying to the larger 
features of composition, would carry us beyond our lim- 
its. But Ave may briefly indicate a further aspect of the 
general principle hitherto traced out, and hint a few of its 
wider applications. 

Thus far, then, we have considered only those causes 
yf force in language which depend upon economy of the 
mental energies: we have now to glance at those which 
depend upon economy of the mental sensibilities. Ques- 
tionable though this division may be as a psychological 
one, it will yet serve roughly to indicate the remaining 
field of investigation. It will surest that besides con^id- 
ering the extent to which any faculty or group of faculties 
is tasked in receiving a form of words and realizing its 
contained idea, we have to consider the state in which 
this faculty or group of faculties is left ; and how the 
reception of subsequent sentences and images will be influ- 
enced by that state. Without going at length into so 



ECONOMY OF THE MENTAL SENSIBILITIES. 41 

wide a topic as the exercise of faculties and its reactive 
effects, it will be sufficient here to call to mind that every 
faculty (when in a state of normal activity) is most capa- 
ble at the outset ; and that the change in its condition, 
which ends in what we term exhaustion, begins simulta- 
neously with its exercise. This generalization, with which 
we are all familiar in our bodily experiences, and which 
our daily language recognizes as true of the mind as a 
whole, is equally true of each mental power, from the 
simplest of the senses to the most complex of the senti- 
ments. If we hold a flower to the nose for long, we be- 
come insensible to its scent. We say of a very brilliant 
flash of lightning that it blinds us ; which means that our 
eyes have for a time lost their ability to appreciate light. 
After eating a quantity of honey, we are apt to think our 
tea is without sugar. The phrase " a deafening roar," im- 
plies that men find a very loud sound temporarily incapa- 
citates them for hearing faint ones. To a hand which has 
for some time carried a heavy body, small bodies after- 
wards lifted seem to have lost their weight. Now, the 
truth at once recognized in these, its extreme manifesta- 
tions, may be traced throughout. It may be shown that 
alike in the reflective faculties, in the imagination, in the 
perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sublime, in 
the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, 
however we may classify them — action exhausts ; and that 
in proportion as the action is violent, the subsequent pros- 
tration is great. 

Equally, throughout the whole nature, may be traced 
the law that exercised faculties are ever tending to resume 
their original state. Not only after continued rest, do 
they regain their full power — not only do brief cessations 
partially reinvigorate them ; but even while they are h) 
action, the resulting exhaustion is ever being neutralized. 
The two processes of waste and repair go on together, 



i-2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

Hence with faculties habitually exercised — as the senses 
of all persons, or the muscles of any one who is strong — 
it happens that, during moderate activity, the repair is so 
nearly equal to the waste, that the diminution of power is 
scarcely appreciable ; and it is only when the activity has 
been long continued, or has been very violent, that the 
repair becomes so far in arrear of the waste as to produce 
a perceptible prostration. In all cases, however, when, 
by the action of a faculty, waste has been incurred, some 
lapse of time must take place before full efficiency can be 
reacquired ; and this time must be long in proportion as 
the waste has been great. 

Keeping in mind these general truths, we shall be in a 
condition to understand certain causes of effect in compo- 
sition now to be considered. Every perception received, 
and every conception realized, entailing some amount of 
waste — or, as Liebig would say, some change of matter in 
the brain ; and the efficiency of the faculties Subject to 
this waste being thereby temporarily, though often but 
momentarily, diminished; the resulting partial inability 
must affect the acts of perception and conception that im- 
mediately succeed. And hence we may expect that the 
vividness with which images are realized will, in many 
cases, depend on the order of their presentation : even 
when one order is as convenient to the understanding as 
the other. 

There are sundry facts which alike illustrate this, and 
are explained by it. Climax is one of them. The marked 
effect obtained by placing last the most striking of any 
series of images, and the weakness — often the ludicrous 
weakness — produced by reversing this arrangement, de- 
pends on the general law indicated. As immediately after 
looking at the sun we cannot perceive the light of a fire, 
while by looking at the fire first and the sun afterwards 
we can perceive both ; so, after receiving a brilliant, or 



EXPLANATION OF CLIMAX. 43 

weighty, or terrible thought, we cannot appreciate a less 
brilliant, less weighty, or less terrible one, while, by re- 
versing the order, we can appreciate each. In Antithesis, 
again, we may recognize the same general truth. The 
opposition of two thoughts that are the reverse of each 
other in some prominent trait, insures an impressive effect ; 
and does this by giving a momentary relaxation to the 
faculties addressed. If, after a series of images of an ordi- 
nary character, appealing in a moderate degree to the 
sentiment of reverence, or approbation, or beauty, the 
mind has presented to it a very insignificant, a very un- 
worthy, or a very ugly image ; the faculty of reverence, 
or approbation, or beauty, as the case may be, having for 
the time nothing to do, tends to resume its full power; and 
will immediately afterwards appreciate a vast, admirable, 
or beautiful image better than it would otherwise do. 
Conversely, where the idea of absurdity due to extreme 
insignificance is to be produced, it may be greatly intensi- 
fied by placing it after something highly impressive : espe- 
cially if the form of phrase implies that something still 
more impressive is coming. A good illustration of the 
effect gained by thus presenting a petty idea to a con- 
sciousness that has not yet recovered from the shock of 
an exciting one, occurs in a sketch by Balzac. His hero 
writes to a mistress who has cooled towards him, the fol- 
lowing letter : 

" Madame, — Votre conduite m'etonne autant qu'elle 
m'afflige. Non contente de me dechirer le coeur par vos 
dedains, vous avez l'indelicatesse de me retenir une brosse 
a dents, que mes moyens ne me permettent pas de rempla 
cer, mes proprietes etant grevees d'hypotheques. 

" Adieu, trop belle et trop ingrate amie ! Puissions- 
Dous nous revoir dans un monde meilleur ! 

" Ciiables-Edouakd." 

Thus we see that the phenomena of Climax, Antithesis, 



M 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 



and Anticlimax, alike result from this general principle. 
Improbable as these momentary variations in susceptibil- 
ity may seem, we cannot doubt their occurrencs when we 
contemplate the analogous variations in the susceptibility 
of the senses. Referring once more to phenomena of vis- 
ion, every one knows that a patch of black on a white 
ground looks blacker, and a patch of white on a black 
ground looks whiter, than elsewhere. As the blackness 
and the whiteness must really be the same, the only assign- 
able cause for this, is a difference in their actions upon us, 
dependent upon the different states of our faculties. It is 
simply a visual antithesis. 

But this extension of the general principle of economy 
— this further condition to effective composition, that the 
sensitiveness of the faculties must be continuously hus- 
banded — includes much more than has been yet hinted. 
It implies not only that certain arrangements and certain 
juxtapositions of connected ideas are best ; but that some 
modes of dividing and presenting a subject will lie more 
striking than others; and that, too, irrespective of its log- 
ical cohesion. It shows why we must progress from the 
less interesting to the more interesting ; and why not only 
the composition as a whole, but each of its successive por- 
tions, should tend towards a climax. At the same time, 
it forbids long continuity of the same kind of thought, or 
repeated production of like effects, 'it warns us against 
the error committed both by Pope in his poems and by 
Bacon in his essays — the error, namely, of constantly em- 
ploying forcible forms of expression : and it points out 
that as the easiest posture by and by becomes fatiguing, 
and is with pleasure exchanged for one less easy ; so, the 
most perfectly-constructed sentences will soon weary, and 
relief will be given by using those of an inferior kind. 

Further, we may infer from it not only that should wo 
avoid generally combining our words in one manner, how- 



IT CORRESPONDS TO HABITS OF THOUGHT. 45 

ever good, or working out our figures and illustrations in 
one way, however telling ; but that we should avoid any- 
thing like uniform adherence, even to the wider conditions 
of effect. We should not make every section of our sub- 
ject progress in interest ; we should not always rise to a 
climax. As we saw that, in single sentences, it is but 
rarely allowable to fulfil all the conditions to strength ; 
so, in the larger sections of a composition we must not 
often conform entirely to the law indicated. We must 
subordinate the component effect to the total effect. 

In deciding how practically to carry out the principles 
of artistic composition, we may derive help by bearing in 
mind a fact already pointed out — the fitness of certain 
verbal arrangements for certain kinds of thought. That 
constant variety in the mode of presenting ideas which 
the theory demands, will in a great degree result from a 
skilful adaptation of the form to the matter. We saw 
how the direct or inverted sentence is spontaneously used 
by excited people ; and how their language is also charac- 
terized by figures of speech and by extreme brevity. 
Hence these may with advantage predominate in emo- 
tional passages; and may increase as the emotion rises. 
On the other hand, for complex ideas, the indirect sen- 
tence seems the best vehicle. In conversation, the excite- 
ment produced by the near approach to a desired conclu- 
sion, will often show itself in a series of short, sharp sen- 
tences ; while, in impressing a view already enunciated, 
we generally make our periods voluminous by piling 
thought upon thought. These natural modes of procedure 
may serve as guides in writing. Keen observation and 
skilful analysis would, in like manner, detect further pecu- 
liarities of expression produced by other attitudes of mind; 
and by paying due attention to all such traits, a writer 
possessed of sufficient versatility might make some ap- 
proach to a completely-organized work. 



46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 

This species of composition which the law of effect 
points out as the perfect one, is the one which high genius 
tends naturally to produce. As we found that the kinds 
of sentence which are theoretically best, are those gener- 
ally employed by superior minds, and by inferior minds 
when excitement has raised them ; so, we shall find that 
the ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which 
the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. One in 
whom the powers of expression fully responded to the 
state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety in 
the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands. 
This constant employment of one species of phraseology, 
which all have now to strive against, implies an undevel- 
oped faculty of language. To have a specific style is to 
be poor in speech. If we remember that in the far past, 
men had only nouns and verbs to convey their ideas with, 
and that from then to now the growth has been towards 
a greater number of implements of thought, and conse- 
quently towards a greater complexity and variety in their 
combinations ; we may infer that we are now, in our use 
of sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use 
of words ; and that a continuance of the process that has 
hitherto gone on must produce increasing heterogeneity 
in our modes of expression. As now, in a fine nature, the 
play of the features, the tones of the voice and its ca- 
dences, vary in harmony with every thought uttered ; so, 
in one possessed of a fully-developed power of speech, the 
mould in which each combination of words is cast will 
similarly vary with, and be appropriate to the sentiment. 

That a perfectly-endowed man must unconsciously 
write in all styles, we may infer from considering how 
styles originate. Why is Johnson pompous, Goldsmith 
simple ? Why is one author abrupt, another rhythmical, 
another concise? Evidently in each case the habitual 
mode of utterance must depend upon the habitual balance 






STYLE VARIES WITH STATES OF FEELING. 47 

of the nature. The predominant feelings have by use 
trained the intellect to represent them. But while long, 
though unconscious, discipline has made it do this effi- 
ciently, it remains, from lack of practice, incapable of 
doing the same for the less active feelings ; and when 
these are excited, the usual verbal forms undergo but 
slight modifications. Let the powers of speech be fully 
developed, however — let the ability of the intellect to 
utter the emotions be complete ; and this fixity of style 
will disappear. The perfect writer will express himself 
as Junius, when in the Junius frame of mind ; when he 
feels as Lamb felt, will use a like familiar speech ; and will 
fall into the ruggedness of Carlyle when in a Carlylean 
mood. Now he will be rhythmical and now irregular; 
here his language will be plain and there ornate; some- 
times his sentences will be balanced and at other times 
unsymmetrical ; for a while there will be considerable 
sameness, and then again great variety. His mode of 
expression naturally responding to his state of feeling, 
there will flow from his pen a composition changing to 
the same degree that the aspects of his subject change. 
He will thus without effort conform to what we have seen 
to be the laws of effect. And while his work presents to 
the reader that variety needful to prevent continuous 
exertion of the same faculties, it will also answer to the 
description of all highly-organized products, both of man 
and of nature : it will be, not a series of like parts simply 
placed in juxtaposition, but one whole made up of unlike 
parts that are mutually dependent. 



II 

O VER-LEGISL ATIOjST * 



IrVROM time to time there returns upon the cautious 
' thinker, the conclusion that, considered simply as a 
question of probabilities, it is decidedly unlikely that his 
views upon any debatable topic are correct. "Here,'' he 
reflects, " are thousands around me holding on this or that 
point opinions differing from mine — wholly in most cases ; 
partially in the rest. Each is as confident as I am of the 
truth of his convictions. Many of them are possessed of 
great intelligence ; and, rank myself high as I may, I must 
admit that some are my equals — perhaps my superiors. 
Yet, while every one of us is sure he is right, unquestiona- 
bly most of us are wrong. Why should not I be among 
the mistaken ? True, I cannot realize the likelihood that 
I am so. But this proves nothing; for though the majori- 
ty of us are necessarily in error, Ave all labour under the 

* Some of the illustrations used iu this essay refer to laws and arrange- 
ments since changed ; while many recent occurences might now be cited 
in further aid of its argument. As, however, the reasoning is not afl 
by these changes ; and as to keep it corrected to the facts of the day would 
involve perpetual alterations ; it seems best to leave it substantially in its 
original state : or rather in the state in which it was republished in Mr. 
Chapman's " Library for the People." 



DISTRUST OF OTJK OPINIONS. 49 

inability to think we are in error. Is it not then foolish 
thus to trust myself? When I look back into the past, I 
find nations, sects, philosophers, cherishing beliefs in sci- 
ence, morals, politics, and religion, which we decisively 
reject. Yet they held them with a faith quite as strong 
as ours : nay — stronger, if their intolerance of dissent is 
any criterion. Of what little worth, therefore, seems this 
strength of my conviction that I am right ! A like war- 
rant has been felt by men all the world through ; and, in 
nine cases out of ten, has proved a delusive warrant. Is 
it not then absurd in me to put so much faith in my judg- 
ments ?" 

Barren of practical results as this reflection at first 
sight appears, it may, and indeed should, influence some 
of our most important proceedings. Though in daily life 
we are constantly obliged to act out our inferences, trust- 
less as they may be — though in the house, in the office, in 
the street, there hourly arise occasions on which we may 
not hesitate ; seeing that if to act is dangerous, never to 
act at all is fatal — and though, consequently, on our pri- 
vate conduct, this abstract doubt as to the worth of our 
judgments, must remain inoperative ; yet, in our public 
conduct, we may properly allow it to weigh with us. 
Here decision is no longer imperative ; while the difficulty 
of deciding aright is incalculably greater. Clearly as we 
may thmk we see how a given measure will work, we 
may infer, drawing the above induction from human ex- 
perience, that the chances are many against the truth 
of our anticipations. Whether in most cases it is not 
wiser to do nothing, becomes now a rational question. 

Continuing his self-criticism, the cautious thinker may 
reason : — " If in these personal transactions, where all the 
conditions of the case were known to me, I have so often 
miscalculated, how much oftener shall I miscalculate in 
political ones, where the conditions are too numerous, too 



50 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 

wide-spread, too complex, too obscure to be understood. 
Here, doubtless, is a social evil and there a desideratum ; 
and were I sure of doing no miscliiel I would forthwith 
try to cure the one and achieve the other. But when I 
remember how many of my private schemes have mis- 
carried — how speculations have failed, agents proved dis- 
honest, marriage been a disappointment — how I did but 
puaperize the relative I sought to help — how my carefully- 
governed son has turned out worse than most children — 
how the thing I desperately strove against as a misfortune 
did me immense good — how while the objects I ardently 
pursued brought me little happiness when gained, most of 
my pleasures have come from unexpected sources ; when 
I recall these and hosts of like facts, I am struck with the 
utter incompetence of my intellect to prescribe for society. 
And as the evil is one under which society has not only 
lived but grown, while the desideratum is one it may 
spontaneously secure, as it has most others, in some unfore- 
seen way, I question the propriety of meddling." 

There is a great want of this practical humility in our 
political conduct. Though we have less self-confidence 
than our ancestors, who did not hesitate to organize in 
law their judgments on all subjects whatever, we have 
yet far too much. Though we have ceased to assume the 
infallibility of our theological beliefs, and so ceased to 
enact them, we have not ceased to enact hosts of other 
beliefs of an equally doubtful kind. Though we no longer 
presume to coerce men for their sjiiritual good, we still 
think ourselves called upon to coerce them for their 
material good — not 'seeing that the one is as useless and 
as unwarrantable as the other. Innumerable failures 
seem, so far, powerless to teach this. Take up a daily 
paper and you will probably find a leader exposing the 
corruption, negligence, or mismanagement of some State- 



BLIND FAITH IN" ENACTMENTS. 51 

department. Cast your eye down the next column, and 
it is not unlikely that you will read proposals for an ex- 
tension of State-supervision. Yesterday came a charge 
gross carelessness against the Colonial office: to-day 
Admiralty bunglings are burlesqued : to-morrow brings 
the question — "Should there not be more coal-mine in- 
spectors?" Now there is a complaint that the Board 
of Health is useless ; and now an outcry for more rail- 
way regulation. While your ears are still ringing 
with denunciations of Chancery abuses, or your cheeks 
still glowing with indignation at some well-exposed 
iniquity of the Ecclesiastical Courts, you suddenly come 
upon suggestions for organizing " a priesthood of science." 
Here is a vehement condemnation of the police for stupidly 
allowing sight-seers to crush each other to death: you 
look for the corollary that official regulation is not to be 
trusted : when instead, apropos of a shipwreck, you read 
an urgent demand for government-inspectors to see that 
ships always have their boats ready for launching. Thus, 
while every day chronicles a failure, there every day 
reappears the belief that it needs but an Act of Parlia- 
ment and a staff of officers, to effect any end desired. No- 
where is the perennial faith of mankind better seen. 
Ever since society existed Disappointment has been 
preaching — " Put not your trust in legislation ;" and yet 
the trust in legislation seems scarcely diminished. 

Did the State fulfil efficiently its unquestionable duties, 
there would be some excuse for this eagerness to assign it 
further ones. Were there no complaints of its faulty 
administration of justice ; of its endless delays and untold 
expenses ; of its bringing ruin in place of restitution ; of 
its playing the tyrant where it should have been the pro- 
tector — did we never hear of its complicated stupidities ; 
its 20,000 statutes, which it assumes all Englishmen to 
know, and which not one Englishmen does know ; it> 



52 OYEE-LEGISLATIOX. 

multiplied forms, which, in the effort to meet every con- 
tingency, open far more loopholes than they provide 
against — had it not shown its folly in the system of mak- 
ing every petty alteration by a new act, variously affect- 
ing innumerable preceding acts; or in its score of succes- 
sive sets of Chancery rules, which so modify, and limit, 
and extend, and abolish, and alter each other, that not 
even Chancery lawyers know what the rules are — were 
we never astounded by such a fact as that, under the 
tern of land registration in Ireland, 6,000/. have been spent 
in a "negative search" to establish the title of an estate 
— did we find in its doings no such terrible incongruity 
as the imprisonment of a hungry vagrant fir stealing a 
turnip, while for the gigantic embezzlements of a railway 
director it inflicts no punishment ; — had we, in short, 
proved its efficiency as judge and defender, instead of hav- 
ing found it treacherous, cruel, and anxiously to be shun- 
ned, there would be some encouragement to hope other 
benefits at its hands. 

Or if, while failing in its judicial functi -ate 

had proved itself a capable agent in some other depart- 
ment — the military for example — there would have 
some show of reason for extending its sphere of action. 
Suppose that it had rationally equipped its t 
of giving them cumbrous and ineffective mm rbar- 

ous grenadier caps, absurdly heavy knapsaeks and 
touche-boxes, and clothing colour! admirably to 

help the enemy's marksmen — suppose that it orga: 
well and economically, instead of Balarying an immense 
superfluity of officers, creating sinecure colonelcies 
4,000/. a year, neglecting the meritorious, and prom 
incapables — suppose that its Boldiers were always well 
housed instead of being thrust into barracks that in 1 
hundreds, as at Aden, or that fall on their occupant! 
at Loodianah, where ninety-five were thus killed — suppose 






MILITARY AND NAVAL MISMANAGEMENT. 53 

that, in actual war, it had shown due administrative abili- 
ty, instead of occasionally leaving its regiments to march 
barefoot, to dress in patches, to capture their own en- 
gineering tools, and to fight on empty stomachs, as dur- 
ing the Peninsular campaign ; — suppose all this, and the 
wish for more State-control might still have had some 
warrant. 

Even though it had bungled in every thing else, yet 
had it in one case done well — had its naval management 
alone been efficient — the sanguine would have had a col- 
ourable excuse for expecting success in a neAV field. Grant 
that the reports about bad ships, ships that will not sail, 
ships that have to be lengthened, ships with unfit engines, 
ships that will not carry their guns, ships without stow- 
age, and ships that have to be broken up, are all untrue — 
assume those to be mere slanderers who say that the 
Megmra took double the time taken by a commercial 
steamer to reach the Cape ; that during the same voyage 
the Hydra was three times on fire, and needed the pumps 
kept going day and night ; that the Charlotte troop-ship 
set out with 15 days' provisions on board, and was three 
months in reaching her destination; that the Harpy, at 
an imminent risk of life, got home in 110 days from Rio — 
disregard as calumnies the statements about septuage- 
narian admirals, dilettante ship building, and " cooked " 
dockyard accounts — set down the affair of the Goldner 
preserved meats as a myth, and consider Professor Barlow 
mistaken when he reported of the Admiralty compasses 
in store, that " at least one-half were mere lumber ;" — let 
all these, we say, be held groundless charges, and there 
would remain for the advocates of much government some 
basis for their political air-castles, spite of military and 
judicial mismanagement. 

As it is, however, they seem to have read backwards 
Jie parable of the talents. Not to the agent of proved 



54 OVEE-LEGISLATTOX. 

efficiency do they consign further duties, but to the negli- 
gent and blundering agent. Private enterprise has done 
much, and done it well. Private enterprise has cleared, 
drained, and fertilized the country, and built the tow 
has excavated mines, laid out roads, dug canals, and em- 
banked railways — has invented, and brought to perfec- 
tion, ploughs, looms, steam-engines, printing-presses, and 
machines innumerable — has built our ships, our 
manufactories, our docks — has established banks, insur- 
ance societies, and the newspaper press — has covered the 
sea with lines of steam-vessels, and the land with electric 
telegraphs. Private enterprise has brought agriculture, 
manufactures, and commerce to their present height, 
is now developing them with increasing rapidity. There- 
fore, do not trust private enterprise. On the other hand, 
the State so fulfils its protective function as to ruin many, 
delude others, and frighten away those who most need 
succour; its national defences are so extravagantly 
yet inefficiently administered, as to call forth almost daily 
complaint, expostulation, or ridicule ; and as the na* 
steward, it obtains from some of our vast public est a 
minus revenue. Therefore, trust the State. Slight the 
good and faithful servant, and promote the unprofitable 
one from one talent to ten. 

Seriously, the case, while it may not, in some I 
warrant this parallel, is, in one respect, even stronger. 
For the new work is not of the same order as the old, but 
of a more difficult order. Badly as government discharges 
its true duties, any other duties committed to it are likely to 
be still worse discharged. To guard its subjects against 
aggression, either individual or national, is a straight 
ward and tolerably simple matter; to regulate, directly or 
indirectly, the personal actions of those subjects is an infi- 
nitely complicated matter. It is one thing to secure to each 
man the unhindered power to pursue his own good ; il 



CLASSIFICATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS. 55 

widely different thing to pursue the good for him. To do 
the first efficiently, the State has merely to look on while 
its citizens act ; to forbid unfairness ; to adjudicate when 
called oi> ; and to enforce restitution for injuries. To do 
the last efficiently, it must become an ubiquitous worker 
— must know each man's needs better than he knows them 
himself — must, in short, possess superhuman power and 
intelligence. Even, therefore, had the State done well in 
its proper sphere, no sufficient warrant would have ex- 
isted for extending that sphere ; but seeing how ill it has 
discharged those simple offices which we cannot help 
consigning to it, small indeed is the probability of its 
discharging well offices of a more complicated nature. 

Change the point of view however we may, and this 
conclusion still presents itself. If we define the primary 
State-duty to be, protecting each individual against 
others; then, all other State action comes under the 
definition of protecting each individual against himself — 
against his own stupidity, his own idleness, his own im- 
providence, rashness, or other defect — his own incapacity 
for doing; something: or other which should be done. 
There is no questioning this classification. For manifestly 
all the obstacles that lie between a man's desires and the 
satisfaction of them, are either obstacles arising from 
other men's counter desires, or obstacles arising from 
inability in himself. Such of these counter desires as are 
just, have as much claim to satisfaction as his ; and may 
not, therefore, be thwarted. Such of them as are unjust, 
it is the State's duty to 1 hold in check. The only other 
possible sphere for it, therefore, is saving the individual 
from the results of his own weakness, apathy, or foolish- 
ness — warding off the consequences of his nature ; or, as 
we say — protecting him against himself. Making no com- 
ment, at present, on the policy of this, and confining our- 
selves solely to the practicability of it, let us inquire how 



56 OVEB-LEGIBLATION. 

the proposal looks when reduced to its simplest form. 
Here are men endowed with instincts, and sentiments, 
and perceptions, all conspiring to self-preservation. Each 
of these faculties has some relationship, direct or indirect, 
to personal well-being. The due action of each brings its 
quantum of pleasure ; the inaction, its more or less of pain. 
Those provided with these faculties in due proportions, 
prosper and multiply ; those ill-provided, unceasingly tend 
to die out. And the general success of this scheme of 
human organization is seen in the fact, that under it the 
world has been peopled, and by it the complicated 
appliances and arrangements of civilized life have been 
developed. 

It is complained, however, that there are certain direc- 
tions in which this apparatus of motive works but imper- 
fectly. While it is admitted that men are duly prompted 
by it to bodily sustenance, to the obtainment of clothing 
and shelter, to marriage and the care of offspring, and to 
the establishment of the more important industrial and 
commercial agencies ; it is yet argued that there are many 
desiderata, as pure air, more knowledge, good water, safe 
travelling, and so forth, wjiich it does not duly achieve. 
And these short-comings being assumed permanent, and not 
temporary, it is urged that some supplementary means must 
be employed. It is therefore proposed that out of the mass 
of men thus imperfectly endowed, a certain number, con- 
stituting the legislature, shall be instructed to secure these 
various objects. The legislators thus instructed (all char- 
acterized, on the average, by the same defects in this 
apparatus of motives as men in general), being unable 
personally to fulfil their tasks, must fulfil them by deputy 
— must appoint commissions, boards, councils, and staffs 
of officers; and must construct their agencies of this same 
defective humanity that acts so ill. Why now should this 
system of complex deputation succeed where the system 



GOVERNMENTS WORKING BY DEPUTY. 57 

of simple deputation does not ? The industrial, commer- 
cial, and philanthropic agencies, which citizens form spon- 
taneously, are directly deputed agencies ; these govern- 
mental agencies made by electing legislators who appoint 
officers, are indirectly deputed ones. And it is hoped 
that, by this process of double deputation, things may be 
achieved which the process of single deputation will not 
achieve. What, now, is the rationale of this hope ? Is it 
that legislators, and their employes, are made to feel more 
intensely than the rest these evils they are to remedy, 
these wants they are to satisfy ? Hardly ; for by position 
they are mostly relieved from such evils and wants. Is 
it, then, that they are to have the primary motive replaced 
by a secondary motive — the fear of public displeasure, and 
ultimate removal from office? Why, scarcely; for the 
minor benefits which citizens will not organize to secure 
directly, they will not organize to secure indirectly, by 
turning out inefficient servants : especially if they cannot 
readily get efficient ones. Is it, then, that these State- 
agents are to do, from a sense of duty, what they would 
not do from any other motive ? Evidently this is the 
only possibility remaining. The proposition on which the 
advocates of much government have to fall back, is, that 
things which the people will not unite to effect for person- 
al benefit, a law-appointed portion of them will unite to 
effect for the benefit of the rest. Public men and func- 
tionaries love their neighbours better than themselves ! 
The philanthropy of statesmen is stronger than the selfish- 
ness of citizens ! 

ISTo wonder, then, that every day adds to the list of 
legislative miscarriages. If colliery explosions increase, 
notwithstanding the appointment of coal-mine inspectors, 
why it is but a natural moral to these false hypotheses. 
If Sunderland shipowners complain that, as far as tried, 
u the Mercantile Marine Act has proved a total failure ; " 



58 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

and if, meanwhile, the other class affected by it — the sail- 
ors — show their disapprobation by extensive strikes ; why 
it does but exemplify the folly of trusting a theorizing 
benevolence rather than an experienced self-interest. On 
all sides we may expect such facts ; and on all sides we 
find them. Government, turning engineer, appoints its 
lieutenant, the Sewers' Commission, to drain London. 
Presently Lambeth sends deputations to say that it pays 
heavy rates, and gets no benefit. Tired of waiting, Beth- 
nal-green calls meetings to consider "the most effectual 
means of extending the drainage of the district." From 
"Wandsworth come complainants, who threaten to pay no 
more until something is done. Camberwell proposes to 
raise a subscription and do the work itself. Meanwhile, 
no progress is made towards the purification of the 
Thames ; the weekly returns show an increasing rate of 
mortality ; in Parliament, the friends of the Commission 
have nothing save good intentions to urge in mitigation 
of censure; and, at length, despairing ministers gladly 
seize an excuse for quietly shelving the Commission and 
its plans altogether.* As architectural surveyor, the State 
lias scarcely succeeded better than as engineer; witness 
the Metropolitan Buildings' Act. New houses still tumble 
down from time to time. A few months since two fell at 
Bayswater, and one more recently near the Pentonville 
Prison: all notwithstanding prescribed thicknesses, and 
noop-iron band, and inspectors. It never struck those 

* So complete is the failure of this and other sanitary bodies, that, at 
the present moment (March, ISo-i), a number of philanthropic gentlemen 
are voluntarily organizing a " Health Fund for London," with the view of 
meeting the threatened invasion of the Cholera ; and the plea for this 
merely private enterprise, is, that the Local Boards of Health and Boards 
of Guardians are inoperative, from "ignorance, 1st, of the extent of th» 
danger; 2d, of the means rchich experience has discovenJ for meet' 
vnd 3d, of the comjHxratiee security which those means may p)xnl>u\." 



FAILURE OF GOVERNMENTAL PROJECTS. 59 

who provided these delusive sureties, that it was possible 
to build walls without bonding the two surfaces together, 
so that the inner layer might be removed after the survey- 
or's approval. Nor did they foresee, that, in dictating a 
xarger quantity of bricks than experience proved abso- 
lutely needful, they were simply insuring a slow deteriora- 
tion of quality to an equivalent extent.* The government 
guarantee for safe passenger ships answers no better than 
its guarantee for safe houses. Though the burning of 
the Amazon arose either from bad construction or bad 
stowage, she had received the Admiralty certificate before 
sailing. Notwithstanding official approval, the Adelaide 
was found, on her first voyage, to steer ill, to have useless 
pumps, ports that let floods of water into the cabins, and 
coals so near the furnaces that they twice caught fire. 
The Wi /S. Lindsay, which turned out unfit for sailing, 
had yet been passed by the government agent ; and, but 
for the owner, might have gone to sea at a great risk of 
life. The Melbourne — originally a State-built ship — which 
took twenty-four days to reach Lisbon, and then needed 
to be docked to undergo a thorough repair, had been duly 
inspected. And lastly, the notorious Australian, before 
her third futile attempt to proceed on her voyage, had, 
her owners tell us, received " the full approbation of the 
government inspector." Neither does the like supervision 
give security to land-travelling. The iron bridge at Ches- 
ter, which, breaking, precipitated a train into the Dee, 
nad passed under the official eye. Inspection did not pre- 
vent a column on the South-eastern from being so placed 
as to kill a man who put his head out of the carriage win- 

* The Builder remarks, that " the removal of the brick-duties has not 
yet produced that improvement in the make of bricks which we ought to 

find, but as bad bricks can be obtained for less than good bricks, 

so long as houses built of the former will sell as readily as if the better had 
been used, no improvement is to be expected." 



60 OYEE-LEGISLATIOX. 

dow. The k comotive that burst at Brighton lately, did 
bo notwithstanding a State approval given but ten days 
previously. And — to look at the facts in the gross — this 
system of supervision has not prevented the gradual in- 
crease of railway accidents ; which, be it remembered, has 
arisen since the system was commenced. 

" Well, let the State fail. It can but do its best. If it 
succeed, so much the better: if it do not, where is the 
harm ? Surely it is wiser to act, and take the chance of 
success, than to do nothing." To this plea the rejoinder 
is, that unfortunately the results of legislative interven- 
tion are not only negatively bad, but often positive 1 . 
Acts of Parliament do not simply fail ; they frequently 
make worse. The familiar truth that persecution aids 
rather than hinders proscribed doctrines — a truth lately 
afresh illustrated by the forbidden work of Gervinus — i- a 
part of the general truth that legislation often does indi- 
rectly, the reverse of that which it directly aims to do. 
Thus has it been with the Metropolitan Buildings' Act. 
As was lately agreed unanimously by the delegates from 
all the parishes in London, and as was stated by them to 
Sir William Molesworth, this act "has encour; 
building, and has been the means of covering the suburbs 
of the metropolis with thousands of wretched ho 
which are a disgrace to a civilized country.*' 

Thus also has it been in provincial towns. The Not- 
tingham Inclosure Act of 1S45, by prescribing the struc- 
ture of the houses to be built, and the extent of yard or 
garden to be allotted to each, has rendered it impossible 
to build working-class dwellings at such moderate rents 
as to compete with existing ones ; it is estimated that, as 
a consequence of this, 10,000 of the population arc debarred 
from the new homes they would otherwise have, and are 
forced to live crowded together in miserable places, unfit 
for human habitatior ; and so, in its anxiety to insure 






STATE ACTION WOKSE THAN NO ACTION. 61 

wealthy accommodation for artisans, the law has entailed 
on them still worse accommodation than before. Thus, 
too, has it been with the Passengers' Act. The terrible 
fevers which arose in the Australian emigrant ships a few 
months since, causing in the JBourneuf 83 deaths, in the 
Wanota 39 deaths, in the Marco Polo 53 deaths, and in 
the Ticonderoga 104 deaths, arose in vessels sent out by 
the government ; and arose in consequence of the close 
packing which the Passengers' Act authorizes.* 

Thus moreover has it been with the safeguards pro- 
vided by the Mercantile Marine Act. The examinations 
devised for insuring the efficiency of captains, have had 
the effect of certifying the superficially-clever and unprac- 
tised men, and, as we are told by a shipowner, rejecting 
many of the long-tried and most trustworthy : the general 
result being that the ratio of s7iipwrec7cs 7ias increased. 
Thus also has it happened with Boards Of Health, which 
have, in sundry cases, exacerbated the evils to be removed; 
as, for instance, at Croydon, where, according to the 
official report, the measures of the sanitary authorities pro- 
duced an epidemic, which attacked 1,600 people, and killed 
*70. Thus again has it been with the Joint Stock Com- 
panies Registration Act. As was shown by Mr. James 
Wilson, in his late motion for a select committee on life- 
assurance associations, this measure, passed in 1844 to 
guard the public against bubble schemes, actually facili* 
tated the rascalities of 1845 and subsequent years. The 
legislative sanction, devised as a guarantee of genuineness, 
and supposed by the people to be such, clever adventurers 
have without difficulty obtained for the most worthless 
projects ; having obtained it, an amount of public confi- 
dence has followed which they could never otherwise 

* Against which close packing, by the way, a private mercantile body — 
the Liverpool Shipowners' Association — unavailingly protested when the 
let was before Parliament. 



62 OYEE-LEGISLATION . 

have gained ; and in this way literally hundreds of sham 
enterprises, that would not else have seen the light, have 
been fostered into being ; and thousands of families have 
been ruined who would never have been so but for legis- 
lative efforts to make them more secure. 

Moreover, when these topical remedies applied by 
statesmen do not exacerbate the evils they were meant 
to cure, they constantly — we believe invariably — induce 
collateral evils ; and these often graver than the original 
ones. It is the vice of this empirical school of politicians 
that they never look beyond proximate causes and imme- 
diate effects. In common with the uneducated masses 
they habitually regard each phenomenon as involving but 
one antecedent and one consequent. They do not bear in 
mind that each phenomenon is a link in an infinite series — 
is the result of myriads of preceding phenomena, and will 
have a share in producing myriads of succeeding ones. 
Hence they overlook the fact, that, in disturbing any 
natural chain of sequences, they are not only modifying 
the result next in succession, but all the future results 
into which this will enter as a part cause. The sertaj 
genesis of phenomena, and the interaction of each e 
upon every other series, produces a complexity utterly be- 
yond human grasp. Even in the simplest cases this is so. 
A servant who mends the fire sees but few effects from 
the burning of a lump of coal. The man of science, how- 
ever, knows that there are very many effects. He knows 
that the combustion establishes numerous atmospheric 
currents, and through them moves thousands of cubic feet 
of air inside the house and out. He knows that the heat 
diffused causes expansions and subsequent contractions of 
all bodies within its range. He knows that the persons 
warmed are affected in their rate of respiration and their 
waste of tissue; and that these physiological changes 
must have various secondary results. He knows that, 



COMPLEX AND INCALCULABLE EFFECTS. 63 

^ould he trace to their ramified consequences all the forces 
disengaged, mechanical, chemical, thermal, electric — could 
he enumerate all the subsequent effects of the evaporation 
caused, the gases generated, the light evolved, the heat 
radiated ; a volume would scarcely suffice to enter them. 

If now from a simple inorganic change such complex 
results arise, how infinitely multiplied, how utterly incal- 
culable must be the ultimate consequences of any force 
brought to bear upon society. Wonderfully constructed 
as it is — mutually dependent as are its members for the 
satisfaction of their wants — affected as each unit of it is 
by his fellows, not only as to his safety and prosperity, 
but in his health, his temper, his culture ; the social or- 
ganism cannot be dealt with in any one part, without all 
other parts being influenced in ways that cannot be fore- 
seen. Tou put a duty on paper, and by-and-by find that, 
through the medium of the jacquard-cards employed, you 
have inadvertently taxed figured silk, sometimes to the 
extent of several shillings per piece. On removing the 
impost from bricks, you discover that its existence had 
increased the dangers of mining, by preventing shafts 
from being lined and workings from being tunnelled. By 
the excise on soap, you have, it turns out, greatly encour- 
aged the use of caustic washing-powders; and so have 
unintentionally entailed an immense destruction of clothes. 
In every case you perceive, on careful inquiry, that besides 
acting upon that which you sought to act upon, you have 
acted upon many other things, and each of these again on 
many others ; and so have propagated a multitude of 
changes more or less appreciable in all directions. 

We need feel no surprise, then, that in their efforts 
to cure specific evils, legislators have continually caused 
collateral evils they never looked for. No Carlyle's 
wisest man, nor any body of such, could avoid causing 
them. Though their production is explicable enough afte? 



64 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

it has occurred, it is never anticipated. When, under the 
New Poor-law, provision was made for the accommoda- 
tion of vagrants in the Union-houses, it was hardly ex- 
pected that a body of tramps would be thereby called into 
existence, who would spend their time in walking from 
Union to Union throughout the kingdom. It was little 
thought by those who in past generations assigned parish- 
pay for the maintenance of illegitimate children, that, as a 
result, a family of such would by-and-by be considered a 
6mall fortune, and the mother of them a desirable wife ; 
nor did the same statesmen see, that, by the law of settle- 
ment, they were organizing a disastrous inequality of 
wages in different districts, and entailing a system of 
clearing away cottages, which would result in the crowd- 
ing of bedrooms, and in a consequent moral and physical 
deterioration. The English tonnage law was enacted 
simply with a view to regulate the mode of measurement : 
its framers overlooked the fact that they were practically 
providing "for the effectual and compulsory construction 
of bad ships;" and that "to cheat the law, that is, to 
build a tolerable ship in spite of it, was the highest achieve- 
ment left to an English builder."* Greater commercial 
security was alone aimed at by the partnership law. We 
now find, however, that the unlimited liability it insists 
upon is a serious hindrance to progress; it practically for- 
bids the association of small capitalists; it is found a great 
obstacle to the building of improved dwellings for the peo- 
ple; it prevents a better relationship between artisans and 
employers; and by withholding from the working-el: 
£ood investments for- their savings, it checks the growth 
of provident habits and encourages drunkenness. Thus 
on all sides are well-meant meausures producing unforeseen 

* Lecture before the Royal Institution, by J. Scott Russell, Esq., " Ol 
Wave-line Ships and Yachts/' Feb. 6, 1852, 



ORIGIN OF SOCIAL AGENCIES. 05 

mischiefs — a licensing law that promotes the adulteration 
of beer ; a ticket-of-leave system that encourages men to 
commit crime ; a police regulation that forces street-huck- 
sters into the workhouse. And then, in addition to the 
obvious and proximate evils, come the remote and less 
distinguishable ones, which, could we estimate their 
accumulated result, we should probably find even more 
serious. 

But the thing to be discussed is, not so much whether, 
by any amount of intelligence, it is possible for a govern- 
ment to work out the various ends consigned to it, as 
whether its fulfilment of them is probable. It is less a ques- 
tion of can than a question of will. Granting the abso- 
lute competence of the State, let us consider what hope 
there is of getting from it satisfactory performance. Let 
us look at the moving force by which the legislative 
machine is worked, and then inquire whether this force 
is thus employed as economically as it would other- 
wise be. 

Manifestly, as desire of some kind is the invariable 
stimulus to action in the individual, every social agency, 
of what nature soever, must have some aggregate of de- 
sires for its motive power. Men in their collective capaci- 
ty can exhibit no result but what has its origin in some 
appetite, feeling, or taste common among them. Did not 
they like meat, there could be no cattle-graziers, no Smith- 
field, no distributing organization of butchers. Operas, 
Philharmonic Societies, music-publishers, and street organ- 
boys, have all been called into being by our love of melodi- 
ous sounds. Look through the trades' directory ; take up 
a guide to the London sights ; read the index of Brad- 
shaw's time-tables, the reports of the learned societies, or 
the advertisement of new books ; and you see in the publi- 
cation itself, and in the things it describes, so many pro- 



66 



OYEE-LEGISLATTON. 



jects of human activity, stimulated by human desire. Un- 
der this stimulus grow up agencies alike the most gigantic 
and the most insignificant, the most complicated and the 
most simple — agencies for national defence and for the 
sweeping of crossings ; for the daily distribution of letters, 
and for the collection of bits of coal out of the Thames 
mud — agencies that subserve all ends, from the preaching 
of Christianity to the protection of ill-treated animals ; 
from the production of bread for a nation to the supply of 
groundsel for caged singing-birds. The accumulated 
desires of individuals being, then, the moving power by 
which every social agency is worked, the question to be 
considered is — "Which is the most economical kind of 
agency? The agency having no power in itself, but being 
merely an instrument, our inquiry must be for the most 
efficient instrument — the instrument that costs least, and 
wastes the smallest amount of the moving power — the 
instrument least liable to get out of crder, and most readily 
put right again when it goes wrong. Of the two kinds 
of social mechanism exemplified above, the spontaneous 
and the governmental, which is the best ? 

From the form of this question will be readily foreseen 
the intended answer — that is the best mechanism which 
contains the fewest parts. The common saying, "What 
you wish well done you must do yourself' 1 embodies a 
truth equally applicable to political as to private life. 
The experience of the agriculturist who finds that farming 
by bailiff entails loss, while tenant-farming pays, is an ex- 
perience still better illustrated in national history than in 
a landlord's account books. The admitted fact, that joint- 
stock companies are beaten wherever individuals compete 
with them, is a still more certain fact when the joint-stock 
company comprehends the whole nation. This transfer- 
ence of power from constituencies to members of parlia- 
ment, from these to the executive, from the executive to a 



SLUGGISHNESS OF OFFICIALISM. 67 

board, from the board to its inspectors, and from inspec- 
tors through their subs down to the actual workers — this 
operating through a series a levers, each of which absorbs 
in friction and inertia part of the moving force ; is as bad, 
in virtue of its complexity, as the direct employment by- 
society of individuals, private companies, and spontane- 
ously-formed institutions, is good, in virtue of its simplicity. 
Fully to realize the contrast, we must compare in detail 
the working of the two systems. 

Officialism is habitually slow. When non-govern- 
mental agencies are dilatory, the public has its remedy: it 
ceases to employ them, and soon finds quicker ones. Un- 
der this discipline all private bodies are taught prompt- 
ness. But for delays in State-departments there is no such 
easy cure. Life-long Chancery suits must be patiently 
borne ; Museum-catalogues must be hopelessly waited for. 
While, by the people themselves, a Crystal Palace is de- 
signed, erected, and filled, in the course of a few months, 
the legislature takes twenty years to build itself a new 
house. While by private persons, the debates are daily 
printed and dispersed over the kingdom within a few 
hours of their utterance, the Board of Trade tables are 
regularly published a month, and sometimes more, after 
date. And so throughout. Here is a Board of Health 
which, since 1849, has been about to close the metropoli- 
tan graveyards, but has not done it yet ; and which has 
so long dawdled over projects for cemeteries, that the 
London Necropolis Company has taken the matter out of 
its hands. Here is a patentee who has had fourteen years' 
correspondence with the Horse Guards, before getting a 
definite answer respecting the use of his improved boot for 
the Army. Here is a Plymouth port-admiral who delays 
Bendins: out to look for the missing boats of the Amazon 
rmtil ten days after the wreck. 

Again, officialism is stupid. Under the natural course 



6*8 OYEE-LEGISLATTOX. 

of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. 
Those who are competent to the kind of work they under- 
take, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced 
in proportion to their efficiency ; while the incompetent, 
society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try some- 
thing easier, and eventually turns to use. But it is quite 
otherwise in State-organizations. Here, as every one 
knows, birth, age, back-stairs intrigue, and sycophancy, 
determine the selections, rather than merit. The " fool of 
the family " readily finds a place in the Church, if " the 
family" have good connections. A youth, too ill-educated 
for any active profession, does very well for an officer in 
the- Army. Gray hair, or a title, is a far better guarantee 
of naval promotion than genius is. Nay, indeed, the man 
of capacity often finds that, in government offices, superi- 
ority is a hindrance — that his chiefs hate to be pestered 
with his proposed improvements, and are offended by his 
implied criticism. Xot only, therefore, is legislative ma- 
chinery complex, but it is made of inferior materials. 
Hence the blunders we daily read of — the supplying to 
the dockyards from the royal forests of timber unfit for 
use ; the administration of relief during the Irish famine 
in such a manner as to draw labourers from the field, and 
diminish the subsequent harvest by one-fourth ;* the filing 
of patents at three different offices and keeping an in- 
dex at none ; the building of iron, war-vessels that should 
be of wood, and the insisting on wood, for mail-steamers 
that should be of iron. Everywhere does this bungling 
show itself, from the elaborate failure of House of Com- 
mons ventilation 'down to the publication of the London 
Gazette, which invaribly comes out wrongly folded. 

A further characteristic of officialism is its extrava* 
gance. In its chief departments, Army, Xavy, and Church, 

* See Evidence of Major Lai . 



EXTRAVAGANCE OF OFFICIALISM. 69 

it employs far more officers than are needful, and pays 
some of the useless ones exorbitantly. The work done "by 
the Sewers Commission has cost, as Sir B. Hall tells us, 
from 300 to 400 per cent, over the contemplated outlay ; 
while the management charges have reached 35, 40, and 
45 per cent, on the expenditure. The trustees of Rams- 
gate Harbour — a harbour, by the way, that has taken a 
century to complete — are spending 18,000/. a year in doing 
what 5,000?. has been proved sufficient for. The Board of 
Health is causing new surveys to be made of all the towns 
under its control — a proceeding which, as Mr. Stephenson 
states, and as every tyro in engineering knows, is, for 
drainage purposes, a wholly needless expense. These 
public agencies are subject to no such influence as that 
which obliges private enterprise to be economical. Trad- 
ers and mercantile bodies succeed by serving society 
cheaply. Such of them as cannot do this are continually 
supplanted by those who can. They cannot saddle the 
nation with the results of their extravagance, and so are 
prevented from being extravagant. On works that are to 
return a profit it does not answer to spend 48 per cent, of 
the capital in superintendence, as in the engineering 
department of the Indian Government ; and Indian rail- 
way companies, knowing this, manage to keep their su- 
perintendence charges within 8 per cent. A shopkeeper 
leaves out of his accounts no item analagous to that 
6,000,000?. of its revenues, which Parliament allows to be 
deducted on the way to the Exchequer. Walk through a 
manufactory, and you see that the stern alternatives, care- 
fulness or ruin, dictate the saving of every penny ; visit one 
of the national dockyards, and the comments you make on 
any glaring wastefulness are carelessly met by the slang 
ohrase — " Nunky pays." 

The unadaptiveness of officialism is another of its vices. 
Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its action 



TO OYEE-LEGISLATTOX. 

to meet emergencies — unlike the shopkeeper who promptly 
finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand — unlike 
the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a 
special influx of passengers ; the law-made instrumentality 
lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances through 
its ordained routine at its habitual rate. By its very 
nature it is fitted only for the average requirements, and 
inevitably fails under unusual requirements. You cannot 
step into the street without having the contrast thrust 
upon you. Is it summer ? You see the water-carts going 
their prescribed rounds with scarcely any regard to the 
needs of the weather — to-day sprinkling afresh the already 
moist roads ; to-morrow bestowing their showers with no 
greater liberality upon roads cloudy with dust. Is it 
winter ? You see the scavengers do not vary in number 
and activity according to the quantity of mud; and if 
there comes a heavy fill of snow, you find the thorough- 
fares remaining for nearly a week in a scarcely passable 
state, without an effort being made even in the heart of 
London to meet the exigency. The late snow-storm, in- 
deed, supplied a neat antithesis between the two orders of 
agency in the effects it respectively produced upon omni- 
buses and cabs. Not being under a law-fixed taritf, the 
omnibuses put on extra horses and raised their fares. The 
cabs, on the contrary, being limited in their charges by an 
Act of Parliament which, with the usual shortsightedness, 
never contemplated such a contingency as this, declined 
to ply, deserted the stands and the stations, left luckless 
travellers to stumble home with their luggage as best they 
might, and so became useless at the very time of all others 
when they were most wanted! Xot only by its unsus- 
ceptibility of adjustment does officialism entail serious in- 
conveniences, but it likewise entails great injustices. In 
this case of cabs for example, it has resulted since the late 
chancre of law, that old cabs, which were before saleable 



INJUSTICE OF OFFICIALISM. 71 

at 10/. and 121. each, are now unsaleable and have to he 
broken up ; and thus legislation has robbed cab-proprietors 
of part of their capital. Again, the recently-passed Smoke- 
Bill for London, which applies only within certain pre- 
scribed limits, has the effect of taxing one manufacturer 
while leaving untaxed his competitor working within a 
quarter of a mile ; and so, as we are credibly informed, 
gives one advantage of 1,500/. a year over another. These 
typify the infinity of wrongs, varying in degrees of hard- 
ship, which legal regulations necessarily involve. Society, 
a living, growing organism, placed within apparatuses of 
dead, rigid, mechanical formulas, cannot fail to be ham- 
pered and pinched. The only agencies which can efficiently 
serve it, are those through which its pulsations hourly 
flow, and which change as it changes. 

How invariably officialism becomes corrupt every one 
knows. Exposed to no such antiseptic as free competi- 
tion — not dependent for existence, as private unendowed 
organizations are, upon the maintenance of a vigorous 
vitality ; all law-made agencies .fall into an inert, over-fed 
state, from which to disease is a short step. Salaries flow 
in irrespective of the activity with which duty is performed ; 
continue after duty wholly ceases ; become rich prizes for 
the idle well born ; and prompt to perjury, to bribery, to 
simony. East India directors are elected not for any 
administrative capacity they may have; but they buy 
votes by promised patronage — a patronage alike asked 
and given, in utter disregard of the welfare of a hundred 
millions of people. Registrars of wills not only get many 
thousands a year each for doing work which their misera- 
bly paid deputies leave half done ; but they, in some cases, 
defraud the revenue, and that after repeated reprimands. 
Dockyard promotion is the result not of efficient services, 
but of political favouritism. That they may continue to 
hold rich livings, clergymen preach what they do not 
4 



72 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

believe; bishops make false returns of their revenues; 
and at their elections to college-fellowships, well-to-do 
priests make oath that they are pauper, plus et doctus. 
From the local inspector whose eyes are shut to an abuse 
by a contractor's present, up to the prime minister who 
finds lucrative berths for his relations, this venality is 
daily illustrated ; and that in spite of public reprobation 
and perpetual attempts to prevent it. As we once heard 
said by a State-official of twenty-five years' standing — 
" Wherever there is government there is villainy." It is 
the inevitable result of destroying the direct connection 
between the profit obtained and the work performed. Xo 
incompetent person hopes, by offering a douceur in the 
Times, to get a permanent place in a mercantile office. But 
where, as under government, there is no employer's self- 
interest to forbid — where the appointment is made by some 
one on whom inefficiency entails no loss ; there a douceur 
is operative. In hospitals, in public charities, in literary 
funds, in endowed schools, in all social agencies in which 
duty done and income gained do not go hand in hand, the 
like corruption is found ; and is great in proportion as the 
dependence of income upon duty is remote. In State- 
organizations, therefore, corruption is unavoidable. In 
trading organizations it rarely makes its appearance ; and 
when it does, the instinct of self-preservation soon pro- 
vides a remedy. 

To all which broad contrasts add this, that while pri- 
vate bodies are enterprising and progressive, public bodies 
are unchanging, and, indeed, obstructive. That officialism 
should be inventive nobody expects. That it should go 
out of its easy mechanical routine to introduce improve- 
ments, and this at a considerable expense of thought and 
application, without the prospect of profit, is not to be 
supposed. But it is not simply stationary ; it strenuously 
resists every amendment either in itself or in any thing 



CORRUPTION AKD OBSTRUCTIVENESS. 73 

with which it deals. Until now that County Courts are 
taking away their practice, all officers of the law have 
doggedly opposed law reform. The universities have 
maintained an old curriculum for centuries after it ceased 
to be fit ; and are now struggling to prevent a threatened 
reconstruction. Every postal improvement has been vehe- 
mently protested against by the postal authorities. Mr. 
Whiston can say how pertinacious is the conservatism o.t 
Church grammar-schools. Not even the gravest conse- 
quences in view preclude official resistance: witness the 
fact that though, as a while since mentioned, Professor Bar- 
low reported in 1820, of the Admiralty compasses then in 
store, that " at least one-half were mere lumber," yet not- 
withstanding the constant risk of shipwrecks thence aris- 
ing " very little amelioration in this state of things appears 
to have taken place until 1838 to 1849."* Nor is official 
obstructiveness to be readily overborne even by a power- 
ful public opinion: witness the fact that, though, for 
generations, nine-tenths of the nation have disapproved 
this ecclesiastical system which pampers the drones and 
starves the workers, and though commissions have been 
appointed to rectify it, it still remains substantially as it 
was : witness again the fact, that though since 1818, there 
have been a score attempts to rectify the scandalous mal- 
administration of Charitable Trusts — though ten times in 
ten successive years, remedial measures have been brought 
before Parliament — the abuses still continue in all their 
grossness. Not only do these legal instrumentalities resist 
reforms in themselves, but they hinder reforms in other 
things. In defending their vested interests, the clergy delay 
the closing of town burial-grounds. As Mr. Lindsay can 
show, government emigration-agents are checking the use of 
iron for sailing-vessels. Excise officers prevent improve* 

* " Rudimentary Magnetism, by Sir W. Snow Hauls. Part III., p. 145 



74 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

ments in the processes they have to overlook. That org'anic 
conservatism which is visible in the daily conduct of all 
men, is an obstacle which in private life self-interest slowly 
overcomes. The prospect of profit does, in the end, teach 
farmers that deep draining is good ; though it takes long 
to do this. Manufacturers do, ultimately, learn the most 
economical speed at which to work their steam-engines ; 
though precedent has long misled them. But in the pub- 
lic service, where there is no self-interest to overcome it, 
this conservatism exerts its full force; and produces results 
alike disastrous and absurd. For generations after book- 
keeping had become universal, the Exchequer accounts 
were kept by notches cut on sticks. In the estimates for 
the current year appears the item, "Trimming the oil- 
lamps at the Horse-Guards." 

Between these law-made agencies, and the sponta- 
neously-formed ones, who then can hesitate ? The one 
class are slow, stupid, extravagant, unadaptive, corrupt, 
and obstructive : can any point out in the other, vices 
that balance these ? It is true that trade lias its dishon- 
esties, speculation its follies. These are evils inevitably 
entailed by the existing imperfections of humanity. It is 
equally true, however, that these imperfections of human- 
ity are shared by State-functionaries ; and that being un- 
checked in them by the same stern discipline, they grow 
to far worse results. Given a race of men having a cer 
tain proclivity to misconduct, and the question is, whether 
a society of these men shall be so organized that ill-con- 
duct directly brings punishment, or whether it shall be so 
organized that punishment is but remotely contingent on 
ill-conduct? "Which will be the most healthful commu- 
nity — that in which agents who perform their functions 
badly, immediately suffer by the withdrawal of public 
patronage ; or that in which such agents can be made to 
Buffer only through an apparatus of meetings, petitions, 



ADVANTAGES OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE. 75 

polling booths, parliamentary divisions, cabin et-councils, 
and red-tape documents ? Is it not an absurdly Utopian 
hope that men will behave better when correction is far 
removed and uncertain than when it is near at hand and 
inevitable ? Yet this is the hope which most political 
schemers unconsciously cherish. Listen to their plans, 
and you find that just what they propose to have done, 
they assume the appointed agents will do. That func- 
tionaries are trustworthy is their first postulate. Doubt- 
less could good officers be ensured, much might be said 
for officialism ; just as despotism would have its advan- 
tages could we ensure a good despot. 

If, however, we would duly realize the contrast be- 
tween the artificial and the natural modes of achieving 
social desiderata, we must look riot only at the vices of 
the one but at the virtues of the other. These are many 
and important. Consider first how immediately every 
private enterprise is dependent upon the need for it ; and 
how impossible it is for it to continue if there be no need. 
Daily are new trades and new companies established. If 
they subserve some existing public want, they take root 
and grow. If they do not, they die of inanition. It 
needs no agitation, no act of Parliament, to put them 
down. As with all natural organizations, if there is no 
function for them, no nutriment comes to them, and they 
dwindle away. Moreover, not only do the new agencies 
disappear if they are superfluous, but the old ones cease 
to be when they have done their work. Unlike law-made 
instrumentalities — unlike Herald's Offices, which are main- 
tained for ages after heraldry has lost all value — unlike 
Ecclesiastical Courts, which continue to flourish for gener- 
ations after they have become an abomination ; these pri- 
vate instrumentalities dissolve when they become needless. 
A widely-ramified coaching system ceases to exist as soon 
as a more efficient railway system comes into being. And 



76 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

not simply does it cease to exist, and to abstract funds, 
but the materials of which it was made are absorbed and 
turned to use. Coachmen, guards, and the rest, are em- 
ployed to profit elsewhere — do not continue for twenty 
years a burden, like the compensated officials of some 
abolished department of the State. 

Consider again how necessarily these un ordained agen- 
cies fit themselves to their work. It is a law of all organ- 
ized things, that efficiency presupposes apprenticeship. 
Not only is it true that the young merchant must begin 
by carrying letters to the post, that the way to be a suc- 
cessful innkeeper is to commence as waiter — not only is it 
true that in the development of the intellect there must 
come first the perceptions of identity and duality, next of 
number, and that without these, arithmetic, algebra, and 
the infinitesimal calculus, remain impracticable ; but it is 
true that there is no part of any organism whatever but 
begins in some very simple form with some insignificant 
function, and passes to its final stage through successive 
phases of complexity. Every heart is at first a mere 
pulsatile sac ; every brain begins as a slight enlargement 
of the spinal cord. This law equally extends to the 
social organism. An instrumentality that is to work well 
must not be designed and suddenly put together by legis- 
lators, but must grow gradually from a germ ; each suc- 
cessive addition must be tried and proved good by expe- 
rience before another addition is made ; and by this tenta- 
tive process only, can an efficient instrumentality be pro- 
duced. From a trustworthy man who receives deposits 
of money, insensibly grows up a vast banking system, 
with its notes, checks, bills, its complex transactions, 
and its Clearing-house. Pack-horses, then waggons, then 
coaches, then steam-carriages on common roads, and, 
finally, steam-carriages on roads made for them — such has 
\>een the slow genesis of our present means of communi- 






SUPERIORITY OF SPONTANEOUS AGENCIES. 77 

cation. Not a trade in the directory but has formed itself 
an apparatus of manufacturers, brokers, travellers, and dis- 
tributors, in so gradual a way that no one can trace the steps. 

And so with organizations of another order. The Zoo- 
logical Gardens, the largest and best thing of its kind in 
the world, began as the private collection of a few natur- 
alists. The best working-class school known — that at 
Price's factory — commenced with half-a-dozen boys sitting 
among the candle-boxes, after hours, to teach themselves 
writing with worn-out pens. Mark, too, that as a conse- 
quence of their mode of growth, these spontaneous agen- 
cies expand to any extent required. The same stimulus 
which brought them into being makes them send their 
ramifications wherever they are needed. But supply does 
not thus readily follow demand in governmental agencies. 
Appoint a board and a staff, fix their duties, and let the 
apparatus have a generation or two to consolidate, and 
you cannot get it to fulfil larger requirements without 
some act of parliament obtained only after long delay and 
difficulty. 

Were there space, much more might be said upon the 
superiority of what naturalists would call the exogenous 
order of institutions over the endogenous one. But, from 
the point of view indicated, the further contrasts between 
their characteristics will be sufficiently visible. 

Hence then the fact, that while the one order of means 
is ever failing, making worse, or producing more evils 
than it cures, the other order of means is ever succeeding, 
ever improving. Strong as it looks at the outset, State- 
agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are 
its first stages, private effort daily achieves results that 
astound the world. It is not only that joint-stock com- 
panies do so much — it is not only that by them a whole 
kingdom is covered with railways in the same time that 
it takes the Admiralty to build a hundred-gun ship; but 



78 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

it is that law-made instrumentalities are outdone even by 
individuals. The often quoted contrast between the Acad- 
emy whose forty members took fifty-six years to compile 
the French Dictionary, while Dr. Johnson alone compiled 
the English one in eight — a contrast still marked enough 
after making due set-off for the difference in the works — 
is by no means without a parallel. Sundry kindred facts 
may be cited. That great sanitary desideratum — the 
bringing of the New River to London — which the wealth- 
iest corporation in the world attempted and failed, Sir 
Hugh Myddleton achieved single-handed. The first canal 
in England — a work of which government might have 
been thought the fit projector, and the only competent 
executor — was undertaken and finished as the private 
speculation of one man — the Duke of Bridgewater. By 
his own unaided exertions, William Smith completed that 
great achievement, the geological map of Great Britain ; 
meanwhile, the Ordnance Survey — a very accurate and 
elaborate one, it is true — has already occupied a large 
staff for some two generations, and will not be completed 
before the lapse of another. Howard and the prisons of 
Europe ; Bianconi and Irish travelling ; Waghorn and the 
Overland route ; Dargan and the Dublin Exhibition — do 
not these suggest startling contrasts? "While private gen- 
tlemen like Mr. Denison, build model lodging-houses in 
which the deaths are greatly below the average, the State 
builds barracks in which the deaths are greatly above the 
average, even of the much-pitied town populations : bar- 
racks, which, though filled with picked men under medi- 
cal supervision, show an annual mortality per thousand of 
13*6, 17'9 and even 20*4; though among civilians of the 
same age in the same places, the mortality per thousand 
is but 11 *9.* While the State has laid out large sums, at 

* See " Statistical Reports on the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding 
amongst the Troops." 1853. 



EFFICIENCY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE. 79 

Parkhurst, in the effort to reform juvenile criminals, who 
are not reformed; Mr. Ellis takes fifteen of the worst 
young thieves in London — thieves considered by the po- 
lice utterly irreclaimable — and reforms them all. Side by 
side with the Emigration Board, under whose management 
hundreds die of fever from close packing, and under whose 
licence sail vessels which, like the Washington, are the 
homes of fraud, brutality, tyranny, and obscenity, stands 
Mrs. Chisholm's Family Colonization Loan Society, which 
does not provide worse accommodation than ever before, 
but much better ; which does not demoralize by promis- 
cuous crowding, but improves by mild discipline ; which 
does not pauperize by charity, but encourages providence ; 
which does not increase our taxes, but is self-supporting. 
Here are lessons for the lovers of legislation. The State 
outdone by a working shoemaker ! The State beaten by 
a woman ! 

Yet still stronger becomes this contrast between the 
results of public action and private action, when we re- 
member that the one is constantly eked out by the other, 
even in doing the things unavoidably left to it. Passing 
over military and naval departments, in which much is 
done by contractors, and not by men receiving govern- 
ment pay — passing over the Church, which is constantly 
extended not by law but by voluntary effort — passing over 
the Universities, where all the efficient teaching is given 
not by the appointed officers but by private tutors ; let us 
look at the mode in which our judicial system is worked. 
Lawyers perpetually tell us that codification is impossi- 
ble; and there are many simple enough to belieTe them. 
Merely remarking, in passing, that what government and 
all its employes cannot do for the Acts of Parliament in 
general, was done for the 1,500 Customs acts in 1825 by 
the energy of one man — Mr. Deacon Hume — let us see 
how the absence of a digested system of law is made 



80 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

good. In preparing themselves for the bar, and finally 
the bench, law students, by years of research, have to gain 
an acquaintance with this vast mass of unorganized legis- 
lation; and that organization which it is held impossible 
for the State to effect, it is held possible (sly sarcasm on 
the State !) for each student to effect for himself. Every 
judge can privately codify, though "united wisdom" can- 
not. But how is each judge enabled to codify ? By the 
private enterprise of men who have prepared the way for 
him ; by the partial codifications of Blackstone, Coke, and 
others ; by the digests of Partnership Law, Bankruptcy 
Law, Law of Patents, Laws affecting Women, and the 
rest that daily issue from the press ; by abstracts of cases, 
and volumes of reports — every one of them unofficial prod- 
ucts. Sweep away all these fractional codifications made 
by individuals, and the State would be in utter ignorance 
of its own laws ! Had not the bunglings of legislators 
been made good by private enterprise, the administration 
of justice would have been inrpossible ! 

Where, then, is the warrant for the constantly-proposed 
extensions of legislative action ? If, as we have seen in a 
large class of cases, government measures do not remedy 
the evils they aim at ; if, in another large class, they make 
these evils worse instead of remedying them ; and if, in 
a third large class, while curing some evils they entail 
others, and often greater ones — if, as we lately saw, pub- 
lic action is continually outdone in efficiency by private 
action ; and if, as just shown, private action is obliged to 
make up for the shortcomings of public action, even in 
fulfilling the vital functions of the State; what reason is 
there for wishing more public administrations ? The 
advocates of such may claim credit for philanthropy, and 
for ingenuity, but not for wisdom ; unless wisdom is shown 
by disregarding experience. 



OBJECTIONS TO THE ARGUMENT. 81 

" Much of this argument is beside the question," will 
rejoin our opponents. " The true point at issue is, not 
whether individuals and companies outdo the State when 
they come in competition with it, but whether there are 
not certain social wants which the State alone can satisfy. 
Admitting that private enterprise does much, and does it 
well, it is nevertheless true that we have daily thrust upou 
our notice many desiderata which it has not achieved, and 
is not achieving. In these cases its incompetency is ol- 
vious ; and in these cases, therefore, it behooves the State 
to make up for its deficiencies : doing this, if not well, yet 
as well as it can." 

Not to fall back upon the many experiences already 
quoted, showing that the State is likely to do more harm 
than good in attempting this ; nor to dwell upon the fact, 
that, in most of the alleged cases, the apparent insuffi- 
ciency- of private enterprise is a result of previous State- 
interferences, as may be conclusively shown ; let us deal 
with the proposition on its own terms. Though there 
would have been no need for a Mercantile Marine Act to 
prevent the unseaworthiness of ships, and the ill-treatment 
of sailors, had there been no Navigation Laws to produce 
these ; and though were all like cases of evils and short- 
comings directly or indirectly produced by law, taken out 
of the category, there would probably remain but small 
basis for the plea above put ; yet let it be granted that, 
every artificial obstacle being removed, there would still 
remain many desiderata unachieved, which there was no 
seeing how spontaneous effort could achieve. Let all this, 
we say, be granted ; the propriety of legislative action 
may yet be rightly questioned. 

For the said plea involves the quite unwarrantable 
assumption that social agencies will continue to work only 
as they are now working ; and will produce no results but 
those they seem likely to produce. It is the habit of this 



B2 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

school of thinkers to make a limited human intelligence 
the measure of phenomena which it requires omniscience 
to grasp. That which it does not see the way to, it does 
not believe will take place. Though society has, genera- 
tion after generation, been growing to developments 
which none foresaw, yet there is no practical belief in 
unforeseen developments in the future. The parliament- 
ary debates constitute an elaborate balancing of proba- 
bilities, having for data things as they are. Meanwhile 
every day adds new elements to things as they are, and 
seemingly improbable results constantly occur. Who, a few 
years ago, expected that a Leicester-square refugee would 
shortly become Emperor of the French? Who looked 
for free trade from a landlords' ministry ? Who dreamed 
that Irish over-population would spontaneously cure itself, 
as it is now doinsr ? So far from social changes arising in 
likely ways, they almost always arise in ways that, to 
common sense, appear unlikely. A barber's shop was not 
a probable-looking place for the germination of the cotton 
manufacture. No one supposed that important agricul- 
tural improvements would come from a Leadenhall-street 
tradesman. A farmer would have been the last man 
thought of to bring to bear the screw propulsion of steam- 
ships. The invention of a new order of architecture we 
should have hoped from any one rather than a gardener. 
Yet while the most unexpected changes are daily wrought 
out in the strangest ways, legislation daily assumes that 
things will go, just as human foresight thinks they will 
go. Though by the trite exclamation — "What would 
our forefathers have said ! " there is a constant acknowledg- 
ment of the fact, that wonderful results have been achieved 
in modes wholly unforeseen, yet there seems no belief that 
this will be again. Would it not be wise to admit such a 
probability into our politics ? May we not rationally infei 
that, as in the past so in the future ? 



ADEQUACY OF NATURAL AGENCIES. 83 

This strong faith in State-agencies is, however, accom- 
panied by so weak a faith in natural agencies (the two 
being antagonistic), that, spite of past experience, it wiL 
by many be thought absurd to rest in the conviction, thai 
existing social needs will be spontaneously met, though 
we cannot say how they will be met. Nevertheless, illus- 
trations • exactly to the point are now transpiring before 
their eyes. Instance the adulteration of food — a thing 
which law has unsuccessfully tried to stop time after time, 
and which yet there seemed no power but law competent 
to deal with. Law, however, having tried and failed, 
here steps in The Lancet, and, with a view to extend its 
circulation, begins publishing weekly analyses, and gives 
lists of honest and dishonest tradesmen. By-and-by we 
shall be having such lists published in other papers, as 
portions of these reports have been already. And when 
every retailer finds himself thus liable to have his sins 
told to all his customers, a considerable improvement may 
be expected. Who, now, would have looked for such a 
remedy as this ? 

Instance, again, the scarcely credible phenomenon 
lately witnessed in the midland counties. Every one has 
heard of the distress of the stockingers — a chronic evil of 
some generation or two's standing. Repeated petitions 
have prayed Parliament for remedy ; and legislation has 
made attempts, but without success. The disease seemed in- 
curable. Two or three years since, however, the circular 
knitting machine was introduced — a machine immensely 
outstripping the old stocking-frame in productiveness, but 
which can make only the legs of stockings, not the feet. 
Doubtless, the Leicester and Nottingham artisans regarded 
this new engine with alarm, as one likely to intensify their 
miseries. On the contrary, it has wholly removed them. 
By cheapening production, it has so enormously increased 
consumption, that the old stocking-frames, which were 



84: OVER-LEGISLATION. 

before too many by half for the work to be done, are now 
all employed in putting feet to the legs which new ma- 
chines make. How insane would he have been thought 
who anticipated cure from such a cause ! If from the 
unforeseen removal of evils we turn to the unforeseen 
achievement of desiderata, we find like cases. No one 
recognized in Oersted's electro-magnetic discovery the 
germ of a new agency for the catching of criminals and 
the facilitation of commerce. "No one expected railways 
to become agents for the diffusion of cheap literature, as 
they now are. No one supposed when the Society of 
Arts was planning an international exhibition of manufac- 
tures, that the result would be a place for popular recrea- 
tion and culture at Sydenham. 

But there is yet a deeper reply to the appeals of impa- 
tient philanthropists. It is not simply that social vitality 
may be trusted by-and-by to fulfil each much-exaggerated 
requirement in some quiet spontaneous way — it is not sim- 
ply that when thus naturally fulfilled it will be fulfilled 
efficiently, instead of being botched as when attempted 
artificially ; but it is that until thus naturally fulfilled it 
ought not to be fulfilled at all. A startling paradox, this, 
to many; but one quite justifiable, as we hope shortly to 
show. 

It was pointed out some distance back, that the force 
which produces and sets in motion every social mechan- 
ism — governmental, mercantile, or other — is some accumu- 
lation of personal desires. As there is no individual ac- 
tion without a desire, so, it was urged, there can be no 
social action without an aggregate desire. To which 
there here remains to add, that as it is a general law ol 
the individual that the intenser desires — those correspond- 
ing to all-essential functions — are satisfied first, and if need 
be to the neglect of the weaker and less important ones 
so, it must be a general law of society that the chief reqiL 



OEDEK OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION. 85 

sites of social life — those necessary to popular existence 
and multiplication — will, in the natural order of things, 
be subserved before those of a less pressing kind. Hav- 
ing a common root in humanity, the two series of phe- 
nomena cannot fail to accord. As the private man first 
ensures himself food ; then clothing and shelter ; these 
being secured, takes a wife ; and, if he can afford it, pres- 
ently supplies himself with carpeted rooms and piano, and 
wines, hires servants, and gives dinner parties ; so, in the 
evolution of society, we see first a combination for defence 
against enemies, and for the better pursuit of game ; by- 
and-by come such political arrangements as are needed to 
maintain this combination ; afterwards, under a demand 
for more food, more clothes, more houses, arises division 
of labour ; and when satisfaction of the animal wants has 
been tolerably provided for, there slowly grow up science, 
and literature, and the arts. Is it not obvious that these 
successive evolutions occur in the order of their import- 
ance ? Is it not obvious, that being each of them pro- 
duced by an aggregate desire they must occur in the order 
of their importance, if it be a law of the individual that 
the strongest desires correspond to the most needful ac- 
tions ? Is it not, indeed, obvious that the order of rela- 
tive importance will be more uniformly followed in social 
action than in individual action ; seeing that the personal 
idiosyncrasies, which disturb that order in the latter case 
are averaged in the former ? 

If any one does not see this, let him take up a book 
describing life at the gold-diggings. There he will find 
the whole process exhibited in little. He will read that 
as the diggers must eat, they are compelled to offer such 
prices for food, that it pays better to keep a store than to 
dig. As the store-keepers must get supplies, they will 
give enormous sums for carriage from the nearest town ; 
and some men quickly seeing they can get rich at that 



86 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

make it their business. This brings drays and horseg 
into demand ; the high rates draw these from all quarters, 
and after them wheelwrights and harness-makers. Black- 
smiths to sharpen pickaxes, doctors to cure fevers, get pay- 
exorbitant in proportion to the need for them ; and are so 
brought flocking in proportionate numbers. Presently 
commodities become scarce ; more must be fetched from 
abroad ; sailors must have increased wages to prevent 
them from deserting ; this necessitates higher charges for 
freight ; higher freights quickly bring more ships ; and so 
there rapidly develops an organization for supplying goods 
from all parts of the world. Every phase of this evolu- 
tion takes place in the order of its necessity ; or as we say 
— in the order of the intensity of the desires subserved. 
Each man does that which he finds pays best ; that which 
pays best is that for which other men will give most ; that 
for which they will give most is that which, under the 
circumstances, they most desire. Hence the succession 
must be throughout from the more important to the less 
important. A requirement which at any period still re- 
mains unfulfilled, must be one for the fulfilment of which 
men will not pay so much as to make it worth any one's 
while to fulfil it — must be a less requirement than all the 
others for the fulfilment of which they will pay more ; and 
must wait until other more needful things are done. Well, 
is it not clear that the same law holds good in every com- 
munity ? TTill it not be true of the later phases of social 
evolution, as of the earlier, that when uncontrolled the 
smaller desiderata are postponed to the greater ? Xo 
reasonable person can doubt it. 

Hence, then, the justification of the seeming paradox, 
that until spontaneously fulfilled a public want should not 
be fulfilled at all. It must, on the average, result in our 
complex state, as in simpler ones, that the thing left 
undone is a thing by doing which citizens cannot gain sc 



HOW TO FIND WHAT IS MOST NEEDFUL. 87 

much as by doing other things — is therefore a thing which 
society does not want done so much as it wants these 
other things done ; and the corollary is, that to effect a 
neglected thing by artificially employing citizens to do it, 
is to leave undone some more important thing which they 
would have been doing — is to sacrifice the greater requi- 
site to the smaller. 

"But," it will perhaps be objected, "if the things done 
by a government, or at least by a representative govern- 
ment, are also done in obedience to some aggregate desire, 
why may we not look for this normal subordination of 
the more needful to the less needful in them too ?" The 
reply is, that thougn they have a certain tendency to fol- 
low this order — though those primal desires for public 
defence and personal protection, out of which government 
originates, were satisfied through its instrumentality in 
proper succession — though possibly some other early and 
simple requirements may have been so too ; yet, when the 
-desires are not few, universal, and intense, but like those 
remaining to be satisfied in the latter stages of civiliza- 
tion, numerous, partial, and moderate, the judgment of 
a government is no longer to be trusted. To select out 
of an immense number of minor wants, physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral, felt in different degrees by different 
classes, and by a total mass varying in every case, the 
want that is most pressing, is a task which no legislature 
can accomplish. No man or men by inspecting society 
can see what it most needs ; society must be left to feel 
what it most needs. The mode of solution must be exper- 
imental, not theoretical. When left, day after day, to 
experience evils and dissatisfactions of various kinds, 
affecting them in various degrees, citizens gradually ac- 
quire repugnance to these proportionate to their greatness, 
and corresponding desires to get rid of them, which are 
ikely to end in the worst inconvenience being first re 



58 OVEK-LEGISLATTON. 

moved. And however irregular this process may be — 
and we admit that men's habits and prejudices produce 
many anomalies, or seeming anomalies, in it — it is a pro- 
cess far more trustworthy than are legislative judgments. 
For those who question this there are instances ; and that 
the parallel may be the more conclusive, we will take a 
case in which the ruling power is deemed specially fit to 
decide ; we refer to our means of communication. 

Do those who maintain that railways would have been 
better laid out and constructed by government, hold that 
the order of importance would have been as uniformly 
followed as it has been by private enterprise? Under the 
stimulus of an enormous traffic — a traffic too great for the 
then existing means — the first line sprung up between 
Liverpool and Manchester. Xext came the Grand Junc- 
tion and the London and Birmingham ; afterwards the 
Great "Western, the South Western, the South Eastern, 
the Eastern Counties, the Midland. Since then subsidiary 
lines and branches have occupied our capitalists. As 
they were quite certain to do, companies made first the 
most needed, and therefore the best-paying lines; under the 
same impulse that a labourer chooses high wages in prefer- 
ence to low. That government would have adopted a bet- 
ter order can hardly be, for the best has been followed ; 
but that it would have adopted a worse, all the evidence 
we have goes to show. In default of materials for a direct 
parallel, we might quote cases of injudicious road-making 
from India and the colonies. Or, as exemplifying State- 
efforts to facilitate communication, we might dwell on the 
fact, that while our rulers have sacrificed hundreds of lives 
and spent untold treasure in seeking a Xorthwest passage, 
which would be useless if found, they have left the explor- 
ation of the Isthmus ol Panama, and the making railways 
and canals through it, to private companies. But, not 
to make much of this indirect evidence, we will content 



ENGLISH EXPEEIENCE IN STATE CANALS 89 

ourselves with the one sample of a State-made channel for 
commerce, which we have at home — the Caledonian Canal. 
Up to the present time, this public work has cost upwards 
of 1,100,000/. ; it has now been open for many years, and 
salaried emissaries have been constantly employed to get 
traffic for it ; the results, as given in its forty-seventh 
annual report, issued in 1852, are — receipts during the 
year, 7,9091. ; expenditure ditto, 9,261/. — loss, 1,352/. Has 
any such large investment been made with such a pitiful 
result by a private canal company ? 

And if a government is so bad a judge of the relative 
importance of social requirements, when these require- 
ments are of the same kind, how worthless a judge must it 
be when they are of different kinds. If, where a fair share 
of intelligence might be expected to lead them right, leg- 
islators and their officers go so wrong, how terribly will 
they err where no amount of intelligence would suffice 
them — where they must daily decide among hosts of 
needs, bodily, intellectual, and moral, that admit of no 
direct comparison ; and how disastrous must be the results 
if they act out their erroneous decisions. Should any one 
need this bringing home to him by an illustration, let him 
read the following extract from the last of the series of 
letters some time since published in the Morning Chroni- 
cle, on the state of agriculture in France. After express- 
ing the opinion that French farming is some century be- 
hind English farming, the writer goes on to say : 

" There are two causes principally chargeable with 
this. In the first place, strange as it may seem in a coun- 
try in which two-thirds of the population are agricultur 
ists, agriculture is a very unhonoured occupation. Devel 
op in the slightest degree a Frenchman's mental faculties, 
and he flies to a town as surely as steel filings fly to a 
loadstone. He has no rural tastes, no delight in rural 
habits. A French amateur farmer would indeed be a sight 



90 OVEE-LEGISLATTON. 

to see. Again, this national tendency is directly encour- 
aged by the centralizing system of government — by the 
multitude of officials, and by the payment of all function- 
aries. From all parts of France, men of great energy and 
resource struggle up, and fling themselves on the world 
of Paris. There they try to become great functionaries. 
Through every department of the eighty-four, men of less 
energy and resource struggle up to the chef -lieu — the pro- 
vincial capital. There they try to become little function- 
aries. Go still lower — deal with a still smaller scale — and 
the result will be the same. As is the department to 
France, so is the arrondissement to the department, and the 
commune to the arrondissement. All who have, or think 
they have, heads on their shoulders, struggle into towns to 
fight for office. All who are, or are deemed by themselves 
or others, too stupid for any tiling else, are left at home to 
till the fields, and breed the cattle, and prune the vines, 
as their ancestors did for generations before them. Thus 
there is actually no intelligence left in the country. The 
whole energy, and knowledge, and resource of the land 
are barreled up in the towns. You leave one city, and in 
many cases you will not meet an educated or cultivated 
individual until you arrive at another — all between is 
utter intellectual barrenness." — Jloiming Chronicle, Au- 
gust, 1851. 

To what end now is this constant abstraction of able 
men from rural districts ? To the end that there may be 
enough functionaries to achieve those many desiderata 
which French governments have thought ought to be 
achieved — to provide amusements, to manage mine?, to 
construct roads and bridges and erect numerous buildings 
— to print books, encourage the fine arts, control thi3 
trade, and inspect that manufacture — to do all the thousand- 
and-one things which the State does in France. That the 
army of officers needed for this may be maintained, agri- 



HOW IT WORKS IN FRANCE. 91 

culture must go unofficered. That certain social conven- 
iences may be better secured, the chief social necessity- 
is neglected. The very basis of the national life is sappect, 
to gain a few non-essential advantages. Said we not truly, 
then, that until a requirement is spontaneously fulfilled, it 
should not be fulfilled at all ? 

And here indeed we may recognize the close kinship 
between the fundamental fallacy involved in these State- 
meddlings and the fallacy lately exploded by the free- 
trade agitation. These various law-made instrumentali- 
ties for effecting ends that might otherwise not yet be 
effected, all embody a subtler form of the protectionist 
hypothesis. The same short-sightedness which, looking 
at commerce, prescribed bounties and restrictions, looking 
at social affairs in general, prescribes these multiplied 
administrations ; and the same criticism applies alike to 
all its proceedings. 

For was not the error that vitiated every law aiming 
at the artificial maintenance of a trade, substantially that 
which we have just been dwelling upon : namely, the 
overlooking the fact, that in setting people to do one 
thing, some other thing is necessarily left undone ? The 
statesmen who thought it wise to protect home-made 
silks against French silks, did so under the impression that 
the manufacture thus secured constituted a pure gain to 
the nation. They did not reflect that the men employed 
in this manufacture would otherwise have been producing 
something else — a something else which, as they could 
produce it without legal help, they could more profitably 
produce. Landlords who have been so anxious to prevent 
foreign wheat from displacing their own wheat, have 
never duly realized the fact, that if their fields would not 
yield wheat so economically as to prevent the feared dis- 
placement, it simply proved that they were growing unfit 



d% OVEE-LEGISLATTON. 

crops in place of fit crops ; and so working their land at a 
relative loss. In all cases where, by restrictive duties, a 
trade has been upheld that would otherwise not have 
existed, capital has been turned into a channel less pro- 
ductive than some other into which it would naturally 
have flowed. In the absence of these restrictions, the 
article made would have been fetched from some place 
where it was more cheaply made ; and in exchange for it 
we should have given some article in which aptitude and 
local circumstances enabled us to excel those with whom 
we thus exchanged. And so, to pursue certain State- 
patronized occupations, men have been drawn from more 
advantageous occupations. 

Is it not, then, as above alleged, that the same over- 
sight runs through all these interferences ; be they with 
commerce, or be they with other things ? Is it not that 
in employing people to achieve this or that desideratum, 
legislators have not perceived that they were thereby pre- 
venting the achievement of some other desideratum ? 
Has it not been constantly assumed that each proposed 
good would, if secured, be a pure good ; instead of being 
a good purchasable only by submission to some evil that 
would else have been remedied? And may we not ration- 
ally believe that, as in trade, so in other things, labour 
will spontaneously find out, better than any government 
can find out for it, the things on which it may best expend 
itself? Undoubtedly we may. Rightly regarded, the 
two propositions are identical. This division into com- 
mercial and non-commercial affairs is quite a superficial 
one. All the actions going on in society come under the 
generalization — human effort administering to human de- 
sire. Whether the administration be effected through a 
process of buying and selling, or whether in any other 
way, matters not so far as the general law of it is con- 
cerned. In all cases it will be true that the stronger 



ITS NEGATIVE EVILS. 03 

desires will get themselves satisfied before the weaker 
ones ; and in all cases it will be true that to get satisfac- 
tion for the weaker ones before they would naturally have 
it, is to deny satisfaction to the stronger ones. 

To the immense positive evils entailed by over-legisla- 
tion have to be added the equally great negative evils — 
evils which, notwithstanding their greatness, are scarcely 
at all recognized, even by the far-seeing. It is not simply 
that the State does those things which it ought not to do, 
but that, as an inevitable consequence, it leaves undone 
those things which it ought to do. Time and human 
activity being limited, it necessarily follows that legisla- 
tors' sins of commission entail corresponding sins of omis- 
sion. The injury is unavoidably doubled. Mischievous 
meddling involves disastrous neglect ; and until statesmen 
are ubiquitous and omnipotent, must ever do so. It is in 
the very nature of things that an agency employed for 
two purposes must fulfil both imperfectly ; partly because 
while fulfilling the one it cannot be fulfilling the other, and 
partly because its adaptation to both ends implies incom- 
plete fitness for either. As has been well said apropos of 
this point — " A blade which is designed both to shave and 
to carve, will certainly not shave so well as a razor or 
carve so well as a carving-knife. An academy of painting, 
which should also be a bank, would in all probability 
exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A 
gas company, which should also be an infant-school society, 
would, we apprehend, light the streets ill, and teach the 
children ill."* 

And if an institution undertakes, not two functions, 
but a score — if a government, whose office it is to defend 
citizens against aggressors, foreign and domestic, engages 

* Edinburgh Review, April, 1839. 



94 OYEK-LEGISLATKXN". 

also to disseminate Christianity, to administer charity, to 
teach children their lessons, to adjust prices of food, to 
inspect coal-mines, to regulate railways, to superintend 
house-building, to arrange cab-fares, to look into people's 
stink-traps, to vaccinate their children, to send out emi- 
grants, to prescribe hours of labour, to examine lodging- 
houses, to test the knowledge of mercantile captains, to 
provide public libraries, to read and authorize dramas, to 
inspect passenger-ships, to see that small dwellings are 
supplied with water, to regulate endless things from a 
banker's issues down to the boat-fares on the Serpentine — 
is it not manifest that its primary duty must be ill dis- 
charged in proportion to the multiplicity of affairs it busies 
itself with? Is it not manifest that its time and energies 
must be frittered away in schemes, and inquiries, and 
amendments, in proposals, and debates, and divisions, to 
the utter neglect of its essential office? And does not a 
glance over the debates make it manifest that this is the 
fact? and that, while parliament and public are alike occu- 
pied with these chimerical projects, these mischievous 
interferences, these Utopian hopes, the one thing needful is 
left almost undone ? 

See here, then, the proximate cause of all our legal 
abominations. TVe drop the substance in our efforts to 
catch shadows. TThile our firesides, and clubs, and tav- 
erns are filled with talk about corn-law questions, and 
church questions, and education questions, and sanitary 
questions — all of them raised by over-legislation — the jus- 
tice question gets scarcely any attention ; and we daily 
submit to be oppressed, cheated, robbed. This institution, 
which should succour the man who has fallen among 
thieves, turns him over to solicitors, barristers, and a legion 
of law-officers ; drains his purse for writs, briefs, affida- 
vits, subpoenas, fees of all kinds and expenses innumera- 
ble; iuvolves him in the intricacies of common courts 



THE STATE NEGLECTS ITS TETTE WORK. 95 

chancery courts, suits, counter-suits, and appeals ; and 
often ruins where it should aid. Meanwhile, meetings are 
called, and leading articles written, and votes asked, and 
societies formed, and agitations carried on, not to rectify 
these gigantic evils, but partly to abolish our ancestors' 
mischievous meddlings, and partly to establish meddlings 
of our own. Is it not obvious that this fatal neglect is a 
result of this mistaken officiousness ? Suppose that exter- 
nal and internal protection had been the sole recognized 
functions of the legislature. Is it conceivable that our 
administration of justice would have been as corrupt as 
now ? Can any one believe that had parliamentary elec- 
tions been habitually contested on questions of legal re- 
form, our judicial system would still have been what Sir 
John Romilly calls it — " a technical system invented for 
the creation of costs" ? Does any one suppose that, if the 
efficient defence of person and property had been the con- 
stant subject-matter of hustings pledges, we should yet be 
waylaid by a Chancery Court which has now more than 
two hundred millions of property in its clutches — which 
keeps suits pending fifty years, until all the funds are gone 
in fees — which swallows in costs two millions annually? 
Dare any one assert that had constituencies been always 
canvassed on principles of law-reform versus law-conserva- 
tism, Ecclesiastical Courts would have continued for cen- 
turies fattening on the goods of widows and orphans ? 
The questions are next to absurd. 

A child may see that with the general knowledge peo- 
ple have of legal corruptions and the universal detestation 
of legal atrocities, an end would long since have been put 
to them, had the administration of justice always been the 
political topic. Had not the public mind been constantly 
preoccupied, it could never have been tolerated that a 
man, neglecting to file an answer to a bill in due course, 
should be imprisoned fifteen years for contempt of court, 



yb OVER-LEGISLATION. 

as Mr. James Taylor was. It would have been impossible 
that on the abolition of their sinecures the sworn-clerks 
should have been compensated by the continuance of their 
exhorbitant incomes, not only till death, but for seven 
years after, at a total estimated cost of £700,000. Were 
the State confined to its defensive and judicial functions, 
not only the people but legislators themselves would agi- 
tate against abuses. The sphere of activity and the 
opportunities for distinction being narrowed, all the 
thought, and industry, and eloquence which members of 
Parliament now expend on countless impracticable schemes 
and countless artificial grievances, would be expended in 
rendering justice pure, certain, prompt, and cheap. The 
complicated follies of our legal verbiage, which the unini- 
tiated cannot understand, and which the initiated interpret 
in various senses, would be quickly put an end to. We 
should no longer constantly hear of Acts of Parliament so 
bunglingly drawn up that it requires half a dozen actions 
and judges' decisions under them, before even lawyers can 
say how they apply. There would be no such stupidly- 
designed measures as the Railway Winding-up Act ; which 
though passed in 1846 to close the accounts of the bubble 
schemes of the mania, leaves them still unsettled in 1854 
— which, even with funds in hand, withholds payment 
from creditors whose claims have been years since 
admitted. Lawyers would no longer be suffered to main- 
tain and to complicate the present absurd system of land 
titles ; which, besides the litigation and ruin it perpetually 
causes, lowers the value of estates, prevents the ready 
application of capital to them, checks the development of 
agriculture, and so, seriously hinders the improvement of 
the peasantry and the prosperity of the country. In short, 
the follies, terrors, and abominations which now environ 
law would cease ; and that which men now shrink from 
as an enemy they would come to regard as what it pur- 
ports to be — a friend. 



LAW THE ENEMY OF THE CITIZEN. 97" 

How vast then is the negative evil, which, in addition 
to the positive evils before enumerated, this meddling 
policy entails on us ! How many are the grievances men 
bear, from which they would otherwise be free ! Who is 
there that has not submitted to injuries rather than run the 
risk of heavy law-costs ? Who is there that has not aban- 
doned just claims rather than " throw good money after 
bad " ? Who is there that has not paid unjust demands 
rather than withstand the threat of an action ? Who is 
there that cannot point to property that has been alienated 
from his family from lack of funds, or courage to fight for 
it ? Who is there that has not a relation ruined by a law- 
suit ? Who is there that does not know a lawyer who has 
grown rich on the hard earnings of the needy and the 
savings of the oppressed ? Who is there that cannot 
name a once wealthy man who has been brought by legal 
iniquities to the workhouse or the lunatic asylum ? Who 
is there that has not, within his own personal knowledge, 
evidence of the great extent to which the badness of our 
judicial system vitiates our whole social life : renders 
almost every family poorer than it would otherwise be ; 
hampers almost every business transaction ; inflicts daily 
anxieties on every trader ? And all this continual loss 
of property, time, temper, comfort, men quietly submit 
to from being absorbed in the pursuit of impracticable 
schemes which eventually bring upon them other losses of 
kindred nature. 

Nay, the case is even worse. It is distinctly proveable 
that many of these evils, about which so great an outcry 
is raised, and to cure which special Acts of Parliament are 
so loudly invoked, are themselves produced by the dis- 
graceful administration of our judicial system. For ex- 
ample, it is well known that the horrors out of which our 
sanitary agitators make political capital, are found in their 
greatest intensity on properties that have been for a genera* 



98 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

tion in Chancery — are distinctly traceable to the ruin thu? 
brought about ; and would never have existed but for the 
infamous corruptions of law. Again, it has been clearly 
shown that the long-drawn miseries of Ireland, which have 
been the subject of endless legislation — of Coercion Bills, 
of Poor Laws, of Rates in Aid, of Drainage Bills, of tinker- 
ings without number — have been mainly produced by 
inequitablel and-tenure and the complicated system of 
entail : a system which wrought such involvements as to 
prevent sales ; which practically negatived all improve- 
ment ; which brought landlords to the workhouse ; and 
which required an Incumbered Estates Act to cut its 
gordian knots and render the proper cultivation of the 
soil possible. 

Judicial negligence, too, is the main cause of railway 
accidents. If the State would duly fulfil its true function, 
by giving passengers an easy remedy for breach of con- 
tract when trains are behind time, it would do more to 
prevent accidents than can be done by the minutest in- 
spection, or the most cunningly-devised regulations ; for 
it is notorious that the majority of accidents are primarily 
caused by irregularity. In the case of bad house-building, 
also, it is obvious that a cheap, rigorous, and certain 
administration of justice, would make Building Acts need- 
less. For is not the man who erects a house of bad 
materials ill put together, and, concealing these with 
papering and plaster, sells it as a substantial dwelling, 
guilty of fraud? And should not the law recognize this 
fraud as it does in the analogous case of an unsound horse '? 
And if the legal remedy were easy, prompt, and sure, 
would builders be such fools as to continue transgressing? 
So is it in numerous other cases : the evils which men 
perpetually call upon the State to cure by superintend- 
ence, themselves arise from the non-performance of its 
original duty. 



CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTING JUSTICE. 99 

Observe then how this vicious policy complicates it- 
self — how it acts and reacts, and multiplies its injuries. 
Not only does meddling legislation fail to cure the evils it 
aims at ; not only does it make many evils worse ; not 
only does it create new evils greater than the old ; but 
while doing this it entails on men all the terrible oppres- 
sions, robberies, cruelties, ruin, that flow from the non- 
administration of justice : and not only to the positive 
evils does it add this vast negative one, but this again, by 
fostering many social abuses that would not else exist, 
furnishes occasions for more meddlings which again act 
and react in the same way. And thus as ever, " things 
bad begun make strong themselves by ill." 

After assigning reasons thus fundamental, for condemn- 
ing all State-action save that which universal experience 
has proved to be absolutely needful, it would seem super- 
fluous to assign subordinate ones. Were it called for, we 
might, taking for text Mr. Lindsay's work on " Naviga- 
tion and Mercantile Marine Law," say much upon the 
complexity to which this process of adding regulation to 
regulation — each necessitated by foregoing ones— ulti- 
mately leads : a complexity which, by the misunderstand- 
ings, delays, and disputes it entails, greatly hampers our 
social life. Something, too, might be added upon the 
perturbing effects of that " gross delusion," as M. Guizot 
calls it, " a belief in the sovereign power of political ma- 
chinery " — a delusion to which he partly ascribes, and, 
we believe, rightly so, the late revolution in France ; and 
a delusion which is fostered by every new interference. 
But, passing over these, we would dwell for a short space 
upon the national enervation which this State-superin- 
tendence produces — an evil which, though secondary, is, 
bo far from being subordinate, perhaps greater than any 
other. 



LOG OVEE-LEGISLATTON. 

The enthusiastic philanthropist, urgent for some act of 
parliament to remedy this evil or secure the other good, 
thinks it a very trivial and far-fetched objection that the 
people will be morally injured by doing things for them 
Instead of leaving them to do things themselves. He 
vividly realizes the benefit he hopes to get achieved, which 
is a positive and readily imaginable thing : he does not 
realize the diffused, invisible, and slowly-accumulating 
effect wrought on the popular mind, and so does not 
believe in it ; or, if he admits it, thinks it beneath con- 
sideration. Would he but remember, however, that all 
national character is gradually produced by the daily 
action of circumstances, of which each day's result seems 
so insignificant as not to be worth mentioning, he would 
see that what is trifling when viewed in its increments, 
may be formidable when viewed in its sum total. Or if 
he would go into the nursery, and watch how repeated 
actions — each of them apparently unimportant, create, in 
the end, a habit which will affect the whole future life ; 
he would be reminded that, every influence brought to bear 
on human nature tells, and if continued, tells seriously. 
The thoughtless mother who hourly yields to the requests 
— "Mamma, tie my pinafore," "Mamma, button my shoe," 
and the like, cannot be persuaded that each of these con- 
cessions is detrimental ; but the wiser spectator sees that 
if this policy be long pursued, and be extended to other 
things, it will end in hopeless dependence. The teacher 
of the old school who showed his pupil the way out of 
every difficulty, did not perceive that he was generating 
an attitude of mind greatly militating against success in 
life. The modern instructor, however, induces his pupil 
to solve his difficulties himself; believes that in so doing 
lie is preparing him to meet the difficulties which, when 
he goes into the world, there will be no one to help him 
through ; and finds confirmation for this belief in the fact 



THE STATE DISCOURAGES SELF-HELP. 101 

that a great proportion of the most successful men are 
self-made. 

*Well, is it not obvious that this relationship between 
discipline and success holds good nationally? Are not 
nations made of men; and are not men subject to the same 
laws of modification in their adult as in their early years ? 
Is it not true of the drunkard, that each carouse adds a 
thread to his bonds ? of the trader, that each acquisition 
strengthens the wish for acquisitions ? of the pauper, that 
the more you assist him the more he wants ? of the busy 
man, that the more he has to do the more he can do ? 
And does it not follow that if every individual is subject 
to this process of adaptation to conditions, a whole nation 
must be so — that just in proportion as its members are 
little helped by extraneous power they will become self- 
helping, and in proportion as they are much helped they 
will become helpless ? What folly is it to ignore these 
results because they are not direct, and not immediately 
visible. Though slowly wrought out, they are inevitable. 
We can no more elude the laws of human development 
than we can elude the law of gravitation : and so long as 
they hold true must these effects occur. 

If we are asked in what special directions this alleged 
helplessness, entailed by much State-superintendence, 
shows itself; we reply that it is seen in a retardation of 
all social growths requiring self-confidence in the people 
— in a timidity that fears all difficulties not before encoun- 
tered — in a thoughtless contentment with things as they 
are. Let any one, after duly watching the rapid evolu- 
tion going on in England, where men have been compara- 
tively little helped by governments — or better still, after 
contemplating the unparalleled progress of the United 
States, which is peopled by self-made men, and the recent 
descendants of self-made men; — let such an ore, we say, 
go on to the Continent, and consider the relatively slow 



102 OVER-LEGISLATION . 

advance which things are there making; and the still 
slower advance they would make but for English enter- 
prise. Let him go to Holland, and see that though the 
Dutch tarly showed themselves good mechanics, and have 
had abundant practice in hydraulics, Amsterdam has been 
without any due supply of water until now that works 
are being established by an English company. Let him 
go to Berlin, and there be told that, to give that city a 
water-supply such as London has had for generations, the 
project of an English firm is about to be executed by 
English capital, under English superintendence. Let him 
go to Paris, where he will find a similar lack, and a like 
remedy now under consideration. Let him go to Vienna, 
and learn that it, in common with other continental cities, 
is lighted by an English gas-company. Let him go on 
the Rhone, on the Loire, on the Danube, and discover 
that Englishmen established steam navigation on those 
rivers. Let him inquire concerning the railways in Italy, 
Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, how many of them are 
English projects, how many have been largely helped by 
English capital, how many have been executed by Eng- 
lish contractors, how many have had English engineers. 
Let him discover, too, as he will, that where railways have 
been government-made, as in Russia, the energy, the per- 
severance, and the practical talent developed in England 
and the United States have been called in to aid. 

And then if these illustrations of the progressiveness 
of a self-dependent race, and the torpidity of paternally- 
governed ones, do not suflice him, he may read Mr. Laing's 
successive volumes of European travel, and there study 
the contrast in detail. "What, now, is the cause of this 
contrast ? In the order of nature, a capacity for self-help 
must in every case have been brought into existence by 
the practice of self-help ; and, other things equal, a lack 
of this capacity must in every case have arisen from tho 



ARREST OF NATIONAL GROWTH. 103 

lack of demand for it. Do not these two antecedents and 
their two consequents agree with the facts as presented in 
Erfgland and Europe ? Were not the inhabitants of the 
two, some centuries ago, much upon a par in point of en- 
terprise? Were not the English even behind, in their 
manufactures, in their colonization, and in their com 
merce ? Has not the immense relative change the English 
have undergone in this respect, been coincident with the 
great relative self-dependence they have been since habitu- 
ated to ? And is not this change proximately ascribable to 
this habitual self-dependence ? Whoever doubts it, is asked 
to assign a more probable cause. Whoever admits it, must 
admit that the enervation of a people by perpetual State- 
aids is not a trifling consideration, but the most weighty 
consideration. A general arrest of national growth he will 
see to be an evil greater than any special benefits can com- 
pensate for. And, indeed, when, after contemplating this 
great fact, the overspreading of the Earth by the Anglo- 
Saxons, he remarks the absence of any parallel phenome- 
non exhibited by a continental race — when he reflects how 
this difference must depend chiefly on difference of charac- 
ter, and how such difference of character has been mainly 
produced by difference of discipline ; he will perceive that 
the policy pursued in this matter may have a large share 
in determining a nation's ultimate fate. 

We are not sanguine, however, that argument will 
change the convictions of those who put their trust in 
legislation. With men of a certain order of thought the 
foregoing reasons will have weight. With men of another 
order of thought they will have little or none : nor would 
any accumulation of such reasons affect them. The truth 
that experience teaches, has its limits. The experiences 
that will teach, must be experiences that can be appreci- 
ated ; and experiences exceeding a certain degree of com- 



104 OVER-LEGISLATION. 

plexity become inappreciable to the majority. It is thus 
with most social phenomena. If we remember that for 
these two thousand years and more, mankind have been 
making regulations for commerce, which have all along 
been strangling some trades, and killing others with kind- 
ness ; and that though the proofs of this have been con- 
stantly before their eyes, they have only just discovered 
that they have been uniformly doing mischief; — if we 
remember that even now only a small portion of them see 
this ; we are taught that perpetually-repeated and ever- 
accumulating experiences will fail to teach, until there 
exist the mental conditions required for the assimilation ot 
them. Nay, when they are assimilated, it is very imper- 
fectly. The truth they teach is only half understood, 
even by those supposed to understand it best. For exam- 
ple, Sir Robert Peel, in one of his last speeches, after de- 
scribing the immensely-increased consumption consequent 
on free trade, goes on to say : 

" If, then, you can only continue that consumption — if, 
by your legislation, under the favour of Providence, you 
can maintain the demand for labour and make your trade 
and manufactures prosjierous, you are not only increasing 
the sum of human happiness, but are giving the agricul- 
turists of this country the best chance of that increaset 
demand winch must contribute to their welfare.'' — Ti > 
Feb. 22, 1850. 

Thus the prosperity really due to the abandonment of 
all legislation, is ascribed to a particular kind of legisla- 
tion. " You can maintain the demand," he says ; " you 
can make trade and manufactures prosperous ;" whereas, 
the facts he quotes prove that they can do this only by 
doing nothing. The essential truth of the matter — that 
law had been doing immense harm, and that this prosperi- 
ty resulted not from law, but from the absence of law — is 
missed; and his faith in legislation in general, which 



BLIND WORSHIP OF GOVERNMENT. 105 

should, by this experience, have been greatly shaken 
seemingly remains as strong as ever. Here, again, is the 
House of Lords, apparently not yet believing in the rela* 
tionship of supply and demand, adopting within these few 
weeks, the standing order — 

" That before the first reading of any bill for making 
any work in the construction of which compulsory power 
is sought to take thirty houses or more inhabited by the 
labouring classes in any one parish or place, the promo- 
ters be required to deposit in the office of the clerk of the 
parliaments a statement of the number, description, and 
situation of the said houses, the number (so far as they 
can be estimated) of persons to be displaced, and whether 
any and what provision is made in the bill for remedying 
the inconvenience likely to arise from such displace- 
ments." 

If, then, in the comparatively simple relationships of 
trade, the teachings of experience remain for so many ages 
unperceived, and are so imperfectly apprehended when 
they are perceived, it is scarcely to be hoped that where 
all social phenomena — moral, intellectual, and physical — ■ 
are involved, any due appreciation of the truths display- 
ed will presently take place. The facts cannot yet get 
recognized as facts. As the alchemist attributed his suc- 
cessive disappointments to some disproportion in the in- 
gredients, some impurity, or some too great temperature, 
and never to the futility of his process, or the impossibili- 
ty of his aim ; so, every failure cited to prove the impo- 
tence of State-regulations the law-worshipper explains 
away as being caused by this trifling oversight, or that 
little mistake : all which oversights and mistakes he assures 
you will in future be avoided. Eluding the facts as he 
does after this fashion, volley after volley of them produce 
no effect. 

Indeed, this faith in governments is in a certain sense 



106 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 

organic ; and can diminish only "by being outgrown. A 
subtle form of fetishism, it is as natural to the present 
phase of human evolution as its grosser prototype -was 
to an earlier phase. From the time when rulers were 
thought demi-gods, there has been a gradual decline in 
men's estimates of their power. This decline is still in 
progress, and has still far to go. Doubtless, every incre- 
ment of evidence furthers it in some degree, though not to 
the degree that at first appears. Only in so far as it modi- 
fies character does it produce a permanent effect. For 
while the mental type remains the same, the removal of 
a special error is inevitably followed by the growth of 
other errors of the same genus. All superstitions die hard; 
and we fear that this belief in government-omnipotence 
will form no exception. 






III. 

THE MOEALS OF TEADE. 



"T"T7^E are not about to repeat, under the above title, 
V V the often-told tale of adulterations : albeit, were it 
our object to deal with this familiar topic, there are not 
wanting fresh materials. It is rather the less-observed 
and less-known dishonesties of trade, to whicn we would 
here draw attention. The same lack of conscientiousness 
which shows itself in the mixing of starch with cocoa, in 
the dilution of butter with lard, in the colouring of con- 
fectionary with chromate of lead and arsenite of copper, 
must of course come out in more concealed forms ; and 
these are nearly, if not quite, as numerous and as mis- 
chievous. 

It is not true, as many suppose, that only the lower 
classes of the commercial world are guilty of fraudulent 
dealings : those above them are to a great extent blame- 
worthy. On the average, men who deal in bales and tons 
differ but little in morality from men who deal in yards 
and pounds. Illicit practices, of every form and shade, 
from venial deception up to all but direct theft, may be 
brought home to the higher grades of our commercial 
world. Tricks innumerable, lies acted or uttered, elabor- 
ately-devised frauds, are prevalent — many of them estab 



108 THE MOEALS OF TEADE. 

lislied as " customs of the trade ;" nay, not only estab* 
tished but defended. 

Passing over, then, the much-reprobated shopkeepers, 
of whose delinquencies most people know something, let 
us turn our attention to the delinquencies of the classes 
above them in the mercantile scale. 

The business of wholesale houses — in the clothing- 
trades at least — is chiefly managed by a class of men 
called "buyers." Each wholesale establishment is usually 
divided into several departments; and at the head of each 
of these departments is placed one of these functionaries. 
A buyer is a partially-independent sub-trader. At the 
beginning of the year he is debited with a certain share of 
the capital of his employers. With this capital he trades. 
From the makers he orders for his department such goods 
as he thinks will find a market ; and for the goods thus 
bought he obtains as large a sale as he can among the 
retailers of his connection. The accounts show at the end 
of the year, what profit has been made on the capital over 
which he has command ; and according to the result, his 
engagement is continued, perhaps at an increased -alary, 
or he is discharged. 

Under such circumstances, bribery would hardly be 
expected. Yet we learn, on unquestionable authority, 
that buyers habitually bribe and are bribed. Giving pres- 
ents, as a means of obtaining custom, is an established and 
understood practice between them and all with whom 
they have dealings. Their connection among retailers 
they extend by treating and favours ; and they are them- 
selves influenced in their purchases by like means. It 
might be presumed that self-interest would in both cases 
negative this. But apparently, no very obvious sacrifice 
results from yielding to such influences. When, as usually 
happens, 'here are many manufacturers producing article* 



BEIBEEY IN THE CLOTHING TRADES. 109 

of like goodness at the same prices, or many buyers be« 
tween whose commodities and whose terms there is little 
room for choice, there exists no motive to purchase of 
one rather than another; and then, the temptation to 
take some immediate bonus turns the scale. Whatever 
be the cause, however, the fact is testified to us alike in 
London and. the provinces. By manufacturers, buyers are 
sumptuously entertained for days together, and are plied 
throughout the year with hampers of game, turkeys, 
dozens of wine, etc. ; nay, they receive actual money- 
bribes : sometimes, as we hear from a manufacturer, in 
the shape of bank-notes ; but more commonly in the shape 
of discounts on the amounts of their purchases. 

The extreme prevalence — universality we might say — 
of this system, is proved by the evidence of one who, dis- 
gusted as he is, finds himself inextricably entangled in it. 
He confessed to us that all his transactions were thus 
tainted. " Each of the buyers with whom I deal," he 
said, " expects an occasional bonus in one form or other. 
Some require the bribe to be wrapped up ; and some take 
it without disguise. To an offer of money, such an one 
replies — ' Oh, I don't like that sort of thing ;' but never- 
theless, he does not object to money's-worth. While my 
friend So-and-so, who promises to bring me a large trade 
this season, will, I very well know, look for one per cent, 
discount in cash. The thing is not to be avoided. I could 
name sundry buyers who look askance at me, and never 
will inspect my goods ; and I have no doubt about the 
cause — I have not bought their patronage." And then our 
informant appealed to another of the trade, who agreed in 
the assertion that in London, their business could not be 
done on any other terms. To such an extent is the sys- 
tem carried, and so greedy of perquisites do some of these 
buyers become, as to absorb a great part of the profits ; 
and to make it a question whether it is worth while to 



110 THE MOKALS OF TEADE. 

continue the connection. And then, as above hinted, there 
comes a like history of transactions between buyers and 
retailers — the bribed being now the briber. One of those 
above referred to as habitually expecting douceurs, said 
to the giver of them, whose testimony we have just re- 
peated — " I've spent pounds and pounds over (naming 

a large tailor), and now I think I have gained him over." 
To which confession this buyer added the complaint, that 
his house did not make him any allowance for sums thus 
disbursed. 

Under the buyer, who has absolute control of his own 
department in a wholesale house, come a number of assist- 
ants, who transact the business with retail traders : much 
as retail traders' assistants transact the business with the 
general public. These higher-class assistants, working 
under the same pressure as the lower, are similarly un- 
scrupulous. Liable to prompt dismissal as they are for 
non-success in selling ; gaining higher positions as they do 
in proportion to the quantities of goods they dispose of at 
profitable rates ; and finding that no objections are made 
to any dishonest artifices they use, but rather that they are 
applauded for them ; these young men display a scarcely 
credible demoralization. As we learn from those who 
have been of them, their duplicity is unceasing — they 
speak almost continuous falsehood ; and their tricks range 
from the simplest to the most Machiavellian. 

Take a few samples. When dealing with a retailer, it 
is an habitual practice to bear in mind the character of 
his business ; and to delude him respecting articles of 
which he has the least experience. If his shop is in a 
neighbourhood where the sales are chiefly of inferior goods 
(a fact ascertained from the traveller), it is inferred that, 
having a comparatively small demand for superior goods, 
he is a bad judge of them ; and advantage is taken of his 
igmrance. Again, it is usual purposely to present sara 



CHEATS IN SELLING CLOTH. Ill 

pies of cloths, silks, etc., in such order as to disqualify the 
perceptions. As when tasting different foods or wines, 
the palate is disabled by something strongly flavoured, 
from appreciating the more delicate flavour of anothei 
thing afterwards taken; so with the other organs of sense, 
a temporary disability follows an excessive stimulation. 
This holds not only with the eyes in judging of colours, 
but also, as we are told by one who has been in the trade, 
it holds with the fingers in judging of textures ; and cun- 
ning salesmen are in the habit of thus partially paralyzing 
the customers' perceptions, and then selling second-rate 
articles as first-rate ones. Another common manoeuvre is 
that of raising a false belief of cheapness. Suppose a tai- 
lor is laying in a stock of broad cloths. He is offered a 
bargain. Three pieces are put before him — two of good 
quality, at, perhaps, 145. per yard ; and one of much in- 
ferior quality, at 85. per yard. These pieces have been 
purposely a little tumbled and creased, to give an appar- 
ent reason for a pretended sacrifice upon them. And the 
tailor is then told that he may have these nominally- 
damaged cloths as " a job lot," at 125. per yard. Misled 
by the appearances into a belief of the professed sacri- 
fice ; impressed, moreover, by the fact that two of the 
pieces are really worth considerably more than the price 
asked ; and not sufficiently bearing in mind that the great 
inferiority of the third just balances this ; the tailor proba- 
bly buys : and he goes away with the comfortable convic- 
tion that he has made a specially-advantageous purchase, 
when he has really paid the full price for every yard. A 
still more subtle trick has been described to us by one 
who himself made use of it, when engaged in one of these 
wholesale-house — a trick so successful that he was often 
sent for to sell to customers who could be induced to buy 
by none other of the assistants, and who ever afterwards 
would buy only of him. His policy was to seem extremely 



112 THE MOEALS OF TRADE. 

simple and honest, and during the first few purchases to 
exhibit his honesty by pointing out defects in the things 
he was selling ; and then, having gained the customer's 
confidence, he proceeded to pass off upon him inferior 
goods at superior prices. 

These are a few out of the various manoeuvres in con- 
stant practice. Of course there is a running accompani- 
ment of falsehoods, uttered as well as acted. It is ex- 
pected of the assistant that he will say whatever is needed 
to effect a sale. " Any fool can sell what is wanted," said 
a master in reproaching a shopman for not having per- 
suaded a customer to buy something quite unlike that 
which he asked for. And the unscrupulous mendacity 
thus required by employers, and encouraged by example, 
grows to a height of depravity that has been described to 
us in words too strong to be repeated. Our informant 
was obliged to relinquish his position in one of these 
establishments, because he could not lower himself to the 
required depth of degradation. " You don't lie as though 
you believe what you say," observed one of his fellow- 
assistants. And this was uttered as a reproach ! 

As those subordinates who have fewest qualms of con- 
science are those who succeed the best, are soonest pro- 
moted to more remunerative posts, and have therefore the 
greatest chances of establishing businesses of their own ; 
it may be inferred that the morality of the heads of these 
establishments, is much on a par with that of their em- 
ployes. The habitual mal-practices of wholesale-houses, 
confirm this inference. Not only, as we have just seen, 
are assistants under a pressure impelling them to deceive 
purchasers respecting the qualities of the goods they buy, 
but purchasers are also deceived in respect to the quanti- 
ties; and that, not by an occasional unauthorized trick, 
but by an organized system, for which the firm itself is 
responsible. The general, and indeed almost universal 



CHEATING IN MEASUREMENT. 113 

practice, is, to make up goods, or to have them made up, 
in lengths that are shorter than they profess to be. A 
piece of calico nominally thirty-six yards long, never meas- 
ures more than thirty-one yards — is understood through- 
out the trade to measure only this. And the long-accumu- 
lating delinquencies which this custom indicates — the suc- 
cessive diminutions of length, each introduced by some 
adept in dishonesty, and then imitated by his competitor? 
— are now being daily carried to a still greater extent, 
wherever they are not likely to be immediately detected. 
Articles that are sold in small bundles, knots, packets, or 
such forms as negative measurement at the time of sale, 
are habitually deficient in quantity. Silk-laces called six 
quarters, or fifty-four inches, really measure four quarters, 
or thirty-six inches. Tapes were originally sold in grosses 
containing twelve knots of twelve yards each ; but these 
twelve-yard knots are now cut of all lengths, from eight 
yards down to five yards, and even less — the usual length 
being six yards. That is to say, the 144 yards which the 
gross once contained, has now in some cases dwindled 
down to 60 yards. In widths, as well as in lengths, this 
deception is practised. French cotton-braid, for instance 
(French only in name), is made of different widths; which 
are respectively marked 5, 7, 9, 11, etc. : each figure indi- 
cating the number of threads of cotton which the width 
includes, or rather should include, but does not. For 
those which should be marked 5 are marked 7 ; and those 
which should be marked 7 are marked 9 : out of three 
samples from different houses shown to us by our inform- 
ant, only one contained the alleged number of threads. 
Fringe, again, which is sold wrapped on card, will often 
be found two inches wide at the end exposed to view, but 
will diminish to one inch at the end next the card ; or per- 
haps the first twenty yards will be good, and all the rest, 
hidden under it, will be bad. These frauds are committed 



1.14 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

unblushingly, and as a matter of business. TTe have our 
selves read in an agent's order-book, the details of an order, 
specifying the actual lengths of which the articles were to 
be cut, and the much greater lengths to be marked on the 
labels. And we have been told by a manufacturer who 
was required to make up tapes into lengths of fifteen 
yards, and label them as "warranted 18 yards," that 
when he did not label them falsely, his goods were 
sent back to him ; and that the greatest concession he 
could obtain, was to be allowed to send them without 
labels. 

It is not to be supposed that in their dealings with 
manufacturers, these wholesale-houses adopt a code of 
morals differing much from that which regulates their 
dealings with retailers. The facts prove it to be much the 
same. A buyer for instance (who exclusively conducts 
the purchases of a wholesale-house from manufacturers) 
will not unfrequently take from a first-class maker a small 
supply of some new fabric, on the pattern of which much 
time and money have been spent ; and this new-pattern 
fabric he will put into the hands of another maker, to have 
copied in large quantities. Some buyers, again, give their 
orders verbally, that they may have the opportunity of 
afterwards repudiating them if they wish ; and in a case 
narrated to us, where a manufacturer who had been thus 
deluded, wished on a subsequent occasion to guarantee 
himself by obtaining the buyer's signature to his order, he 
was refused it. 

For other unjust acts of wholesale-houses, the heads of 
these establishments are, we presume, responsible. Small 
manufacturers working with insufficient capital, and in 
times of depression not having the wherewith to meet 
their engagements, are often obliged to become depend- 
ants on the wholesale-houses with which they deal ; and 
are then cruelly taken advantage of. One who has thus 



KNAVERIES OF WHOLESALE HOUSES. 115 

committed himself, has either to sell his accumulated stock 
at a great sacrifice — thirty to forty per cent, below its 
value — or else to mortgage it; and when the wholesale- 
house becomes the mortgagee, the manufacturer has little 
chance of escape. He is obliged to work at the whole- 
saler's terms ; and ruin almost certainly follows. This is 
especially the case in the silk-hoisery business. As was 
said to us by one of the larger silk-hosiers, who had 
watched the destruction of many of his smaller brethren 
— " They may be spared for a while as a cat spares a 
mouse ; but they are sure to be eaten up in the end." 
And we can the more readily credit this statement, from 
having found that a like policy is pursued by some pro- 
vincial curriers in their dealings with small shoe-makers ; 
and also by hop-merchants and maltsters in their dealings 
with small publicans. We read that in Hindostan, the 
ryots, when crops fall short, borrow from the Jews to 
buy seed ; and once in their clutches are doomed. It 
seems that our commercial world can furnish parallels. 

Of another class of wholesale-traders — those who sup- 
ply grocers with foreign and colonial produce — we may 
say that though, in consequence of the nature of their 
business, their mal-practices are less numerous and multi- 
form, as well as less glaring, they are of much the same 
stamp as the foregoing. Unless it is to be supposed that 
sugar and spices are moral antiseptics as well as physical 
ones, it must be expected that wholesale dealers in them 
will transgress much as other wholesale dealers do, in 
those directions where the facilities are greatest. And 
the truth is, that both in the qualities and quantities of 
the articles they sell, they take advantage of the retail- 
ers. The descriptions they give of their commodities are 
habitually misrepresentations. Samples sent round to 
their customers are characterized as first-rate when they 
are really second-rate. The travellers are expected to en- 



116 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

dorse these untrue statements. And unless the grocei 
has adequate keenness and extensive knowledge, he is 
more or less deceived. In some cases, indeed, no skill 
will save him. There are frauds that have grown up 
little by little into customs of the trade, which the re- 
tailer must submit to. In the purchase of sugar, for ex- 
ample, he is imposed on in respect alike of the goodness 
and the weight. 

The history of the dishonesty is this: Originally the 
tare allowed by the merchant on each hogshead, was 14 per 
cent, of the gross weight. The actual weight of the wood 
of which the hogshead was made, was at that time about 
12 per cent, of the gross weight. And thus the trade 
allowance left a profit of 2 per cent, to the buyer. Gradu- 
ally, however, the hogshead has grown thicker and heavier ; 
until now, instead of amounting to 12 per cent, of the 
gross weight, it amounts to 1 7 per cent. And as the 
allowance of 14 per cent, still continues, the result is that 
the retail grocer loses 3 per cent. : to the extent of 3 per 
cent, he buys wood in the place of sugar. In the quality 
of the sugar, he is deluded by the practice of giving him 
a sample only from the best part of the hogshead. Dur- 
ing its voyage from Jamaica or elsewhere, the contents of 
a hogshead undergo a certain slow draining. The molas- 
ses, of which more or less is always present, filters from 
the uppermost part of the mass of sugar to the lowermost 
part ; and this lowermost part, technically known as" the 
"foot," is of darker colour and smaller value. The quan 
tity of it contained in a hogshead, varies greatly; and the 
retailer, receiving a false sample, has to guess what the 
quantity of " foot " may be ; and to his cost often under- 
estimates it. As will be seen from the following letter, 
copied from the Public Ledger for the 20th Oct., 1S5S, 
these grievances, more severe even than we have repre> 
sented them, are now exciting an agitation : 



FRAUDS OF WHOLESALE GROCERS. 117 

" To the Retail Grocers of the United Kingdom. 
'■ l Gentlemen,— -The time has arrived for the trade at once to 
make a move for the revision of tares on all raw sugars. Facts 
prove the evil of the present system to he greatly on the increase. 
We suhmit a case as under, and only one out of twenty. On the 
30th August, 1858, we bought 3 hogsheads of Barbados, mark TG 

K 

Ee Tares. 

No. cwt. qrs. lb. 

1 . . 1 3 27 

7 . . 1 3 20 

3 . . 1 3 27 





Invoice Tares. 


No. 


cwt. 


qrs. 


lb. lb. 


1 . 

7 . 

8 . 


. . 1 
. . 1 
. . 1 


2 
2 
2 


14 6 drift 
7 
21 




4 


3 


20 

Deduct 



5 3 18 
. 4 3 20 



s. £ s. d. 

3 26 at 42 — 2 1 3 

" We make a claim for £2 Is. 3d. ; we are told by the whole- 
sale grocer there is no redress. 

" There is another evil which the retail grocer has to contend 
with, that is, the mode of sampling raw sugar : the foots are ex- 
cluded from the merchants' samples. Facts will prove that in 
thousands of hogsheads of Barbados this season there is an aver- 
age of 5 cwt. of foots in each ; we have turned out some with 10 
cwt., which are at least 5s. per cwt. less value than sample, and in 
these cases we are told again there is no redress. 

" These two causes are bringing hundreds of hard-working 
men to ruin, and will bring hundreds more unless the trade take 
it up, and we implore them to unite in obtaining so important a 
revision. 

" We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants, 

" Walkee and Staines.* 

"Birmingham, October 19, 1858." 

A more subtle method of imposition remains to be 
added. It is the practice of sugar-refiners to put moist, 
crushed sugar into dried casks. During the time that 
elapses before one of these casks is opened by the retailer, 

* The abuses described in this letter have now, we believe, been abolished 



118 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

the desiccated wood has taken up the excess of water 
from the sugar ; which is so brought again into good con- 
dition. When the retailer, however, finding that the cask 
weighs much more than was allowed as tare by the whole- 
sale dealer, complains to him of this excess, the reply is — 
" Send it up to us, and we will dry it and weigh it, as if 
the custom of the trade." 

Without further detailing these mal-practices, of which 
the above examples are perhaps the worst, we will advert 
only to one other point in the transactions of these large 
houses — the drawing-up of trade-circulars. It is the prac- 
tice of many wholesalers to send round to their custom- 
ers, periodic accounts of the past transactions, present con- 
dition, and prospects of the markets. Serving as checks 
on each other, as they do, these documents are prevented 
from swerving very widely from the truth. But it is 
scarcely to be expected that they should be quite honest. 
Those who issue them, being in most cases interested in 
the prices of the commodities referred to in their circulars, 
are swayed by their interests in the representations they 
make respecting the probabilities of the future. Far-see- 
ing retailers are on their guard against this. A large pro- 
vincial grocer, who thoroughly understands his business, 
said to us — "As a rule, I throw trade-circulars on the 
fire." And that this estimate of their trustworthiness is 
not unwarranted, Ave gather from the expressions of those 
engaged in other businesses. From two leather-dealers, 
one in the country and one in London, we have heard the 
same complaint against the circulars published by houses 
m their trade, that they are misleading. Xot that they 
state untruths ; but that they produce false impressions 
by leaving out facts which they should have stated. 

In illustrating the morality of manufacturers, we shall 
confine ourselves to one class — those who work in silk 



DISHONESTIES OF MANUFACTURERS. 119 

And it will be the most convenient method of arranging 
facts, to follow the silk through its various stages ; from 
its state when imported, to its state when ready for the 
wearer. 

Bundles of raw silk from abroad — not uncommonly- 
weighted with rubbish, stones, or rouleaux of Chinese cop- 
per coin, to the loss of the buyer — are disposed of by auc- 
tion. Purchases are made on behalf of the silk-dealers by 
" sworn brokers ; " and the regulation is, that these sworn 
brokers shall confine themselves solely to their functions 
as agents. From a silk-manufacturer, however, we learn 
that they are currently understood to be themselves spec- 
ulators in silk, either directly or by proxy; and that as 
thus personally interested in prices, they become faulty as 
ag°nts. We give this, however, simply as a prevailing 
opinion ; for the truth of which we do not vouch. 

The silk bought by the London dealer, he sends into 
the manufacturing districts to be " thrown ; " that is, to 
be made into thread fit for weaving. In the established 
form of bargain between the silk-dealer and the silk- 
throwster, we have a strange instance of an organized and 
recognized deception ; which has seemingly grown out of 
a check on a previous deception. The throwing of silk is 
necessarily accompanied by some waste ; from broken 
ends, knots, and fibres too weak to wind. This waste 
varies in different kinds of silks from 3 per cent, to 20 per 
cent. : the average being about 5 per cent. The percent- 
age of waste being thus variable, it is obvious that in the 
absence of restraint, a dishonest silk-throwster might ab- 
stract a portion of the silk ; and on returning the rest to 
the dealer, might plead that the great diminution in the 
weight had resulted from the large amount of loss in the 
process of throwing. Hence there has arisen a system, 
called " working on cost," which requires the throwster 

to send back to the dealer the same weight of silk which 
6 



120 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

he receives: the meaning of the phrase being, we presume, 
that whatever waste the throwster makes must be at his 
own cost. Now, as it is impossible to throw silk without 
some waste — at least 3 per cent., and ordinarily 5 per cent. 
— this arrangement necessitates a deception ; if, indeed, 
that can be called a deception which is tacitly understood 
by all concerned. The silk has to be weighted. As much 
as is lost in throwing, has to be made up by some foreign 
substance introduced. Soap is largely used for this. In 
small quantity, soap is requisite to facilitate the running 
of the threads in the process of manufacture ; and the 
quantity is readily increased. Sugar also is used. And 
by one means or other, the threads are made to absorb 
enough matter to produce the desired weight. To this 
system all silk-throwsters are obliged to succumb ; and 
some of them carry it to a great extent, as a means of 
hiding either carelessness or something worse. 

The next stage through which silk passes, is that of 
dyeing. Here, too, impositions have grown chronic and 
general. In times past, as we learn from a ribbon-manu- 
facturer, the weighting by water was the chief dishonesty ; 
bundles returned from the dyer's, if not manifestly damp, 
still containing moisture enough to make up for a portion of 
the silk that had been kept back. And precautions had to 
be taken to escape losses thus entailed. Since then, how- 
ever, there has arisen a method of deception which leaves 
this far behind — that of employing heavy dyes. The fol- 
lowing details have been given us by a silk-throwster. It 
is now, he says, some five-and-tkirty years since this 
method was commenced. Before that time, silk lost a 
considerable part of its weight in the copper. It appears 
that the ultimate fibre of silk is coated, in issuing from the 
spinneret of the silk-worm, with a film of varnish that is 
soluble in boiling water. In dyeing, therefore, this film, 
amounting to 25 per cent, of the entire weight of the silk, 



FBATIDS IN THE SILK BUSINESS. 121 

is dissolved off; and the silk is rendered that much lighter. 
So that originally, for every sixteen ounces of silk sent to 
the dyer's, only twelve ounces were returned. Gradually, 
however, by the use of heavy dyes, this result has been 
reversed. The silk now gains in weight ; and sometimes 
to a scarcely credible extent. According to the require- 
ment, silk is sent back from the dyer's of any weight from 
twelve ounces to the pound, up to forty ounces to the 
pound. The original pound of silk, instead of losing four 
ounces, as it naturally would, is actually, when certain 
black dyes are used, made to gain as much as twenty-four 
ounces ! Instead of 25 per cent, lighter, it is returned 150 
per cent, heavier — is weighted with 175 per cent, of for- 
eign matter ! Now as, during this stage of its manufac- 
ture, the transactions in silk are carried on by weight, it 
is manifest that in the introduction and development of 
this system, we have a long history of frauds. At present 
all in the trade are aware of it, and on their guard against 
it. Like other modes of adulteration, in becoming estab- 
lished and universal, it has ceased to be profitable to any 
one. But it still serves to indicate the morals of those 
concerned. 

The thrown and dyed silk passes into the hands of the 
weaver ; and here again we come upon dishonesties. 
Manufacturers of figured silks, sin against their fellows by 
stealing their patterns. The laws that have been found 
necessary to prevent this species of piracy, show that it 
has been carried to a great extent. Even now it is not 
prevented. One who has himself suffered from it, tells us 
that manufacturers still get each other's designs by bribing 
the workmen. In their dealings with " buyers," too, some 
manufacturers resort to deceptions : perhaps tempted to 
do so by the desire to compensate themselves for the heavy 
tax paid in treating, etc. Certain goods that have already 
been seen and declined by other buyers, are brought before 



122 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

a subsequent one with artfully-devised appearances of 
secrecy; accompanied by professions that these gooda 
have been specially reserved for his inspection : a manoeu- 
vre by which an unwary man is sometimes betrayed. 
That the process of production has its delusions, scarcely 
needs saying. In the ribbon-trade, for example, there is a 
practice called " top-ending ; " that is, making the first 
three yards good, and the rest (which is covered when 
rolled up) of bad or loose texture — 80 " shutes " to the 
inch instead of 108. And then there comes the issuing of 
imitations made of inferior materials — textile adulterations 
as we may call them. This practice of debasement, not 
an occasional but an established one, is carried to a sur- 
prising extent ; and with surprising rapidity. Some new 
fabric, first sold at 7s. Gel. per yard, is supplanted by suc- 
cessive counterfeits ; until at the end of eighteen months 
a semblance of it is selling at 4s. 3c?. per yard. Xay, still 
greater depreciations of quality and price take place — 
from 10s. down to 3s., and even 2s. per yard. Until at 
length the badness of these spurious fabrics becomes so 
conspicuous, that they are unsaleable ; and there ensues a 
reaction, ending either in the reintroduction of the origi- 
nal fabric, or in the production of some novelty to supply 
its place. 

Among our notes of mal-practices in trade, retail, 
wholesale, and manufacturing, we have many others that 
must be passed over. TTe cannot here enlarge on the not 
uncommon trick of using filse trade-marks ; or imitating 
another maker's wrappers; and so deluding purchasers. 
We must be satisfied with simply referring to the doings 
of apparently-reputable houses, which purchase goods 
known to be dishonestly obtained. And we are obliged 
to refrain from particularizing certain established arrange- 
ments, existing under cover of the highest respectability, 



MEN FOECED INTO DISHONESTY. 123 

which seem intended to facilitate these nefarious transac- 
tions. The frauds we have detailed are but samples of a 
state of things which it would take a volume to describe 
in full. 

The further instances of trading-immorality which it 
seems desirable here to give, are those which carry with 
them a certain excuse ; showing as they do how insensibly, 
and almost irresistibly, men are thrust into vicious prac- 
tices. Always, no doubt, some utterly unconscientious 
trader is the first to introduce a new form of fraud. He 
is by-and-by followed by others who wear their moral 
codes but loosely. The more upright traders are continu- 
ally tempted to adopt this questionable device which those 
around them are adopting. The greater the number who 
yield, and the more general and familiar the device be- 
comes, the more difficult is it for the remainder to stand 
out against it. The pressure of competition upon them, 
becomes more and more severe. They have to fight an 
unequal battle : debarred as they are from one of the 
sources of profit which their antagonists possess. And 
they are finally almost compelled to follow the lead of the 
rest. Take for example what has happened in the candle- 
trade. As all know, the commoner kinds of candles are 
sold in bunches, supposed to weigh a pound each. Origi- 
nally, the nominal weight corresponded with the real 
weight. But at present the weight is habitually short, 
by an amount varying from half an ounce to two ounces 
— is sometimes depreciated 12-J per cent. 

If, now, an honest chandler offers to supply a retailer 
at, say six shillings for the dozen pounds, the answer he 
receives is — " Oh, we get them for five-and-eightpence." 
" But mine," replies the chandler, " are of full weight ; 
while those you buy at five-and-eightpence are not." 
" What does that matter to me ?" the retailer rejoins — " a 
pound of candles is a pound of candles : my customers 



124: THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

buy them in the bunch, and won't know the difference 
between yours and another's." And the honest chandler, 
being everywhere met with this argument, finds that he 
must either make his pounds of short weight, or give up 
business. Take another case, which, like the last, we have 
direct from the mouth of one who has been obliged to 
6uccumb. It is that of a manufacturer of the elastic web- 
bing, now extensively used in making boots, etc. From a 
London house with which he dealt largely, this manufac- 
turer recently received a sample of webbing produced by 
some one else, accompanied by the question, " Can you 

make us this at per yard ?" (naming a price below 

that at which he had before supplied them) ; and hinting 
that if he could not do so, they must go elsewhere. On 
pulling to pieces the sample (which he showed to us), this 
manufacturer found that sundry of the threads which 
should have been of silk were of cotton. Indicating this 
fact to those who sent him the sample, he replied that if 
he made a like substitution, he could furnish the fabric at 
the price named ; and the result was that he eventually 
did thus furnish it. He saw that if he did not do so, he 
must lose a considerable share of his trade. He saw fur- 
ther, that if he did not at once yield, he would have to 
yield in the end ; for that other elastic-webbing-makers 
would one after another engage to produce this adulterated 
fabric at correspondingly diminished prices ; and that 
when at length he stood alone in selling an apparently 
similar article at a higher price, his business woidd leave 
him. This manufacturer we have the best reason for 
knowing to be a man of fine moral nature, both generous 
and upright ; and yet Ave here see him obliged, in a sense, 
to implicate himself in one of these processes of vitiation. 
It is a startling assertion, but it is none the less a true 
one, that those who resist these corruptions, often do it at 
the risk of bankruptcy: sometimes the certainty of bank 



HONESTY THE ROAD TO BANKRUPTCY. 125 

ruptcy. We do not say this simply as a manifest infer 
ence from the conditions, as above described ; we say it 
on the warrant of instances that have been given to us. 
From one brought up in his house, we have had the his- 
tory of a draper, who, carrying his conscience into his 
shop, refused to commit the current frauds of the trade. 
He would not represent his goods as of better quality 
than they really were ; he would not say that patterns 
were just out, when they had been issued the previous 
season ; he would not warrant to wash well, colours which 
he knew to be fugitive. Refraining from these and the 
like mal-practices of his competitors ; and, as a conse- 
quence, daily failing to sell various articles which his com- 
petitors would have sold by force of lying ; his business 
was so unremunerative that he twice became bankrupt. 
And in the opinion of our informant, he inflicted more 
evil upon others by his bankruptcies, than he would have 
done by committing the usual trade-dishonesties. 

See, then, how complicated the question becomes ; and 
how difficult to estimate the trader's criminality. Often 
— generally indeed — he has to choose between two wrongs. 
He has tried to carry on his business with strict integrity. 
He has sold none but genuine articles ; and has given full 
measure. Others in the same business adulterate or oth- 
erwise delude; and are so able to undersell him. His 
customers, not adequately appreciating the superiority in 
the quality or quantity of his goods, and attracted by 
the apparent cheapness at other shops, desert him. An 
inspection of his books proves the alarming fact, that his 
diminishing returns will soon be insufficient to meet his 
engagements, and provide for his increasing family. What 
then must he do? Must he continue his present course; 
stop payment ; inflict heavy losses on his creditors ; and 
with his wife and children turn out into the streets ? Or 
must he follow the example of his competitors ; use their 



126 THE MORALS OF TEADE. 

artifices ; and give his customers the same apparent advan- 
tages ? The last not only seems the least detrimental to 
himself, but also may be considered the least detrimental 
to others. Moreover, the like is done by men regarded as 
respectable. Why should he ruin himself and family in 
trying to be better than his neighbours ? He will do as 
they do. 

Such is the position of the trader ; such is the reason- 
ing by which he justifies himself; and it is hard to visit 
him with any thing like harsh condemnation. Of course 
this statement of his case is by no means universally true. 
There are businesses in which, competition being less ac- 
tive, the excuse for falling into corrupt practices does not 
hold ; and here, indeed, we find corrupt practices much 
less prevalent. Many traders, too, have obtained connec- 
tions which secure to them adequate returns without de- 
scending to small rogueries ; and they have no defence if 
they thus degrade themselves. Moreover, there are the 
men — commonly not prompted by necessity, but by greed 
— who introduce these adulterations and petty frauds ; and 
on these should descend unmitigated indignation : both as 
being themselves criminals without excuse, and as causing 
criminality in others. Leaving out, however, these com- 
paratively small classes, we think that most traders by 
whom all the commoner businesses are carried on, must 
receive a much more qualified censure than they at first 
sight seem to deserve : forced to give way, as they are, 
by the alternative of ruin. On all sides we have met with 
the same conviction, that for those engaged in the ordi- 
nary trades, there are -but two courses — either to adopt 
the practices of their competitors, or to give up business. 
Men in different occupations and in different places — men 
naturally conscientious, who manifestly chafed under the 
degradations they submitted to, have one and all expressed 
to us the sad belief, that it is impossible to carry on trade 



CONSCIENCE A BARRIER TO SUCCESS. 127 

with strict rectitude. Their concurrent opinion, independ- 
ently given by each, is, that the scrupulously honest man 
must go ihe wall. 

But that it has been during the past year frequently 
treated by the daily press, we might here enter at some 
length on the topic of banking-delinquencies. As it is, 
we may presume all to be familiar with the facts ; and 
shall limit ourselves to making a few comments. 

In the opinion of one whose means of judging have 
been second to those of few, the directors of joint-stock 
banks have rarely been guilty of direct dishonesty. Ad- 
mitting notorious exceptions, the general fact appears to 
be, that directors have had no immediate interests in fur- 
thering these speculations which have proved so ruinous 
to depositors and shareholders ; but have usually been 
among the greatest sufferers. Their fault has rather been 
the less flagitious, though still grave fault, of indifference 
to their responsibilities. Often with very inadequate 
knowledge, they have undertaken to trade with a vast 
amount of property belonging in great part to needy peo- 
ple. Instead of using as much care in the investment of 
this property as though it were their own, many of them 
have shown culpable recklessness : either themselves loan- 
ing capital without adequate guarantee, or else passively 
allowing their colleagues to do this. Sundry excuses may 
doubtless be made for them. The well-known defects of 
a corporate conscience, caused by divided responsibility, 
must be remembered in mitigation. And it may also be 
pleaded for such delinquents, that if shareholders, swayed 
by reverence for mere wealth and position, choose as di- 
rectors, not the most intelligent, the most experienced, 
and those of longest-tried probity, but those of largest 
capital or highest rank, the blame must not be cast solely 
on the men so chosen ; but must be shared by the men 



128 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

who choose them : and further, must fall on the public as 
well as on shareholders ; seeing that this unwise selection 
of directors is in part determined by the known bias of 
depositors. 

But after all allowances have been made, it must be 
admitted that these bank-administrators who risk the 
property of their clients by loaning it to speculators, are 
near akin in morality to the speculators themselves. As 
these speculators risk other men's money in undertakings 
which they hope will be profitable ; so do the directors 
who lend them the money. If these last plead that the 
money thus lent, is lent with the belief that it will be 
repaid with good interest ; the first may similarly plead 
that they expected their investment to return the bor- 
rowed capital along with a handsome profit. In each case 
the transaction is one of which the evil consequences, if 
they come, fill more largely on others than on the actors. 
And though it may be contended, on behalf of the direc- 
tor, that what he does is done chiefly for the benefit of his 
constituents, whereas the speculator has in view only Lis 
own benefit ; it may be replied that the director's blame- 
worthiness is not the less because he took a rash step with 
a comparatively weak motive. The truth is, that when a 
bank-director lends the capital of shareholders to those to 
whom he would not lend his own capital, he is guilty of a 
breach of trust. In tracing the gradations of crime, we 
pass from direct robbery to robbery one, two, three, or 
more degrees removed. Though a man who speculates 
with other people's money, is not chargeable with direct 
robbery, he is chargeable with robbery one degree re- 
moved : he deliberately stakes his neighbour's property, 
intending to appropriate the gain, if any, and to let his 
neighbour suffer the loss, if any: his crime is that of con- 
tingent robbery. And hence any one who, standing like 
a bank-director in the position of trustee, puts the money 



ACCOMMODATION-BILLS CHARACTERIZED. 129 

Willi which he is entrusted into a speculator's hands, must 
be called an accessory to contingent robbery. 

If so grave a condemnation is to be passed on those 
who lend trust-money to speculators, as well as on the 
speculators who borrow it, what shall we say of the still 
more delinquent class who obtain loans by fraud — who not 
only pawn other men's property when obtained, but ob- 
tain it under false pretences? For how else than thus 
must we describe the doings of those who raise money by 
accommodation-bills ? When A and B agree, the one to 
draw and the other to accept a bill of £1,000 for "value 
received ;" while in truth there has been no sale of goods 
between them, or no value received ; the transaction is 
not simply an embodied lie, but it becomes thereafter a 
living and active lie. Whoever discounts the bill, does so 
in the belief that B, having become possessed of £1,000 
worth of goods, will, when the bill falls due, have either 
the £1,000 worth of goods or some equivalent, with which 
to meet it. Did he know that there were no such goods 
in the hands of either A or B, and no other property avail- 
able for liquidating the bill, he would not discount it — he 
would not lend money to a man of straw without security. 

The case is intrinsically the same as though A had 
taken to the bank a forged mortgage-deed, and obtained 
a loan upon it. Practically an accommodation-bill is a 
forgery. It is an error to suppose that forgery is limited 
to the production of documents that are physically false — 
that contain signatures or other symbols which are not 
what they appear to be : forgery, properly understood, 
equally includes the production of documents that are 
morally false. What constitutes the crime committed in 
forging a bank-note ? ISTot the mere mechanical imitation. 
This is but a means to the end ; and, taken alone, is no 
crime at all. The crime consists in deluding others into 
the acceptance of what seems to be a representative of so 



L30 THE MOEALS OF TRADE. 

much money, but which actually represents nothing. It 
matters not whether the delusion is effected by copying 
the forms of the letters and figures, as in a forged bank 
note, or by copying the form of expression, as in an accom- 
modation-bill. In either case a semblance of value is 
given to that which has no value ; and it is in giving this 
false appearance of value that the crime consists. It is 
true that generally, the acceptor of an accommodation- 
bill hopes to be able to meet it when due. But if those 
who think this exonerates him, will remember the many 
cases in which, by the use of forged documents, men have 
obtained possession of moneys which they hoped presently 
to replace, and were nevertheless judged guilty of forgery ; 
they will see that the plea is insufficient. 

We contend, then, that the manufacturers of accommo- 
dation-bills should be classed as forgers. Whether, if the 
law so classed them, much good would result, we are not 
prepared to say. Several questions present themselves : — 
Whether such a change would cause inconvenience, by 
negativing the many harmless transactions carried on un- 
der this fictitious form by solvent men? Whether making 
it penal to use the words "value received,"' unless there 
had been valued received, would not simply originate an 
additional class of bills in which these words were 
omitted? Whether it would be an advantage if bills 
bore on their faces, proofs that they did or did not repre- 
sent actual sales ? Whether a restraint on undue credit 
would not result, when bankers and discounters saw that 
certain bills coming to them in the names of speculative 
or unsubstantial traders, were avowed accommodation- 
bills? But these are questions we need not go out of our 
way to discuss. We are here concerned only with the 
morality of the question. 

Duly to estimate the greatness of the evils indicated, 
however, we must bear m mind both that the fraudulent 



THE TRAIN OF EVIL CONSEQUENCES. 131 

transactions thus entered into are numerous, and that each 
generally becomes the cause of many others. The origi- 
nal lie is commonly the parent of further lies, which again 
give rise to an increasing progeny ; and so on for succes- 
sive generations, multiplying as they descend. When A 
and B find their £1,000 bill about to fall due, and the ex- 
pected proceeds of their speculation not forthcoming — 
when they find, as they often do, either that the invest- 
ment has resulted in a loss instead of a gain ; or that the 
time for realizing their hoped-for profits, has not yet come; 
or that the profits, if there are any, do not cover the ex- 
travagances of living which, in the mean time, they have 
sanguinely indulged in — when, in short, they find that the 
bill cannot be taken up ; they resort to the expedient of 
manufacturing other bills with which to liquidate the first. 
And while they are about it, they usually think it will be 
as well to raise a somewhat larger sum than is required to 
meet their out-standing engagements. Unless it happens 
that great success enables them to redeem themselves, this 
proceeding is repeated, and again repeated. So long as 
there is no momentary crisis, it continues easy thus to 
keep afloat; and, indeed, the appearance of prosperity 
which is given by an extended circulation of bills in their 
names, bearing respectable indorsements, creates a confi- 
dence in them which renders the obtainment of credit 
easier than at first. 

And where, as in some cases, this process is carried to 
the extent of employing men in different towns through- 
out the kingdom, and even in distant parts of the world, 
to accept bills, the appearances are still better kept up, 
and the bubble reaches a still greater development. As, 
however, all these transactions are carried on with 
borrowed capital, on which interest has to be paid; as, 
further, the maintenance of this organized fraud entails 
constant expenses, as well as occasional sacrifices; and 



132 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

as it is in the very nature of the system to generate reck- 
less speculation, the fabric of lies is almost certain ulti- 
mately to fall ; and, in falling, to ruin or embarrass many 
others besides those who had given credit. 

Nor does the evil end with the direct penalties from 
time to time inflicted on honest traders. There is also a 
grave indirect penalty which they suffer from the system. 
These forgers of credit are habitually instrumental in low- 
ering prices below their natural level. To meet emergen- 
cies, they are obliged every now and then to sell goods at 
a loss : the alternative being immediate stoppage. Though 
with each such concern, this is but an occasional occur- 
rence, yet, taking the whole number of them connected 
with any one business, it results that there are at all times 
some who are making sacrifices — at all times some who 
are unnaturally depressing the market. In short, the 
capital fraudulently obtained from some traders, is, in 
part, dissipated in rendering the business of other traders 
deficiently remunerative : often to their serious embarrass- 
ment. 

If, however, the whole truth must be said, the condem- 
nation visited on these commercial vampires is not to be 
confined wholly to them; but is in some degree deserved 
by a much more numerous class. Between the penniless 
schemer who obtains the use of capital by false pretences, 
and the upright trader who never contracts greater liabili- 
ties than his estate will liquidate, there lie all gradations. 
From businesses carried on entirely with other people's 
capital obtained by forgery, we pass to businesses in 
which there is a real .capital of one-tenth, and a credit 
capital of nine-tenths ; to other businesses in which the 
ratio of real to fictitious capital is somewhat greater; and 
so on until we reach the very extensive class of men who 
trade but a little beyond their means. By insensible steps 
we advance from the one extreme to the other; and 



GKADATIONS OF DISHONESTY. 133 

these most venial transgressors cannot be wholly ab- 
solved from the criminality which so clearly attaches to 
the rest. 

To get more credit than would be given were the 
state of the business fully known, is in all cases the aim ; 
and the cases in which this credit is partially unwarranted, 
differ only in degree from those in which it is wholly un- 
warranted. As most are beginning to see, the prevalence 
of this indirect dishonesty has not a little to do with our 
commercial disasters. Speaking broadly, the tendency is 
for every trader to hypothecate the capital of other trad- 
ers, as well as his own. And when A has borrowed on 
the strength of B's credit ; B on the strength of C's ; and 
C on the strength of A's — when, throughout the trading 
world, each has made engagements which he can meet 
only by direct or indirect aid — when everybody is want- 
ing help from some one else, to save him from falling ; a 
crash is certain. The punishment of a general unconscien- 
tiousness may be postponed ; but it is sure to come 
eventually. 

The average commercial morality cannot, of course, 
be accurately depicted in so brief a space. On the one 
hand, we have been able to give but a few typical in- 
stances of the mal-practices by which trade is disgraced. 
On the other hand, we have been obliged to present these 
alone ; unqualified by the large amount of honest dealing 
throughout which they are dispersed. While, by accumu- 
lating such evidences, the indictment might be made much 
heavier ; by diluting them with the immense mass of 
equitable transactions daily carried on, the verdict would 
be greatly mitigated. After making all allowances, how- 
ever, we fear that the state of things is very bad. And 
our impression on this point is due less to the particu- 
lar facts above given, than to the general opinion ex 



134 THE MORALS OF TEADE. 

pressed by our informants. On all sides we have found 
the result of long personal experience, to "be the con- 
viction that trade is essentially corrupt. In tones of dis- 
gust or discouragement, reprehension or derision, accord- 
ing to their several natures, men in business have one 
after another expressed or implied this belief. Omitting 
the highest mercantile classes, a few of the less common 
trades, and those exceptional cases where an entire com- 
mand of the market has been obtained, the uniform testi- 
mony of competent judges is, that success is incompatible 
with strict integrity. To live in the commercial world it 
appears necessary to adopt its ethical code : neither ex- 
ceeding nor falling short of it — neither being less honest 
nor more honest. Those who sink below its standard are 
expelled ; while those who rise above it are either pulled 
down to it or ruined. As, in self-defence, the civilized 
man becomes savage among savages ; so, it seems that in 
self-defence, the scrupulous trader is obliged to become as 
little scrupulous as his competitors. It has been said that 
the law of the animal creation is — " Eat and be eaten ; " 
and of our trading community it may be similarly said 
that its law is — Cheat and be cheated. .V system of keen 
competition, carried on, as it is, without adequate moral 
restraint, is very much a system of commercial cannibal- 
ism. Its alternatives are — Use the same weapons as your 
antagonists, or be conquered and devoured. 

Of questions suggested by these facts, one of the most 
obvious is — Are not the prejudices that have ever been 
entertained against trade and traders, thus fully justified '? 
do not these meannesses and dishonesties, and the moral 
degradation they imply, warrant the disrespect shown to 
men in business? A prompt affirmative answer will 
probably be looked for; but we very much doubt whether 
it should be given. AVe are rather of opinion that these 
delinquencies are products of the average English eharae 



THE TRADEES KECRlMEirATIOlTS. 135 

ter placed under special conditions. There is no good 
reason for assuming that the trading classes are intrinsic- 
ally worse than other classes. Men taken at random from 
higher and lower ranks, would, most likely, if similarly 
circumstanced, do much the same. Indeed the mercantile 
world might readily recriminate. Is it a solicitor who 
comments on their misdoings ? They may quickly silence 
him by referring to the countless dark stains on the repu- 
tation of his fraternity. Is it a barrister ? His frequent 
practice of putting in pleas which he knows are not valid ; 
and his established habit of taking fees for work that he 
does not perform ; make his criticism somewhat suicidal. 
Does the condemnation come through the press ? The con- 
demned may remind those who write, of the fact that it is 
not quite honest to utter a positive verdict on a book 
merely glanced through, or to pen-glowing eulogies on the 
mediocre work of a friend while slighting the good one of 
an enemy ; and may further ask whether those who, at 
the dictation of an employer, write what they disbelieve, 
are not guilty of the serious offence of adulterating public 
opinion. 

Moreover, traders might contend that many of their 
delinquencies are thrust on them by the injustice of their 
customers. They, and especially drapers, might point to 
the fact that the habitual demand for an abatement of 
price, is made in utter disregard of their reasonable profits ; 
and that to protect themselves against attempts to gain 
by their loss, they are obliged to name prices greater than 
those they intend to take. They might also urge that the 
strait to which they are often brought by the non-pay- 
ment of accounts due from their wealthier customers, is 
itself a cause of their mal-practices : obliging them, as it 
does, to use all means, illegitimate as well as legitimate, 
for getting the wherewith to meet their engagements. In 
proof of the wrongs inflicted on them by the non-trading 



136 THE MORALS OF TEADE. 

classes, they might instance the well-known cases of large 
shopkeepers in the West-end, who have been either ruined 
by the unpunctuality of their customers, or have been 
obliged periodically to stop payment, as the only way of 
getting their bills settled. And then, after proving that 
those without excuse show this disregard of other men's 
claims, traders might ask whether they, who have the 
excuse of having to contend with a merciless competition, 
are alone to be blamed if they display a like disregard in 
other forms. 

Nay, eren to the guardians of sotial rectitude — mem- 
bers of the legislature — they might use the tu quoque 
argument : asking whether bribery of a customer's ser- 
vant, is any worse than bribery of an elector ? or whether 
the gaining of suffrages by clap-trap hustings-speeches, 
containing insincere professions adaj)ted to the taste of 
the constituency, is not as bad as getting an order for 
goods by delusive representations respecting their quality ? 
No ; it seems probable that close inquiry would show few 
if any classes to be free from immoralities that are as 
great, relatively to the temptations, as these which we 
have been exposing. Of course they will not be so petty 
or so gross where the circumstances do not prompt petti- 
ness or grossness ; nor so constant and organized where 
the class-conditions have not tended to make them habit- 
ual. But, taken with these qualifications, we think that 
much might be said for the proposition that the trading 
classes, neither better nor worse intrinsically than other 
classes, are betrayed into their flagitious habits by exter- 
nal causes. 

Another question, here naturally arising, is — Are not 
these evils growing worse? Many of the facts we have 
cited seem to imply that they are. And yet there are 
many other facts which point as distinctly the other 
way. In weighing the evidence, we must bear in mind, 



ARE MATTERS GROWING WORSE ? 137 

/hat the much greater public attention at present paid to 
such matters, is itself a source of error — is apt to generate 
the belief that evils now becoming recognized, are evils 
that have recently arisen ; when in truth they have merely 
been hitherto disregarded, or less regarded. It has been 
clearly thus with crime, with distress, with popular igno- 
rance ; and it is very probably thus with trading-dishones- 
ties. As it is true of individual beings, that their height 
in the scale of creation may be measured by the degree of 
their self-consciousness ; so, in a sense, it is true of societies. 
Advanced and highly-organized societies are distinguished 
from lower ones by the evolution of something that stands 
for a social self-consciousness — a consciousness in each 
citizen, of the state of the aggregate of citizens. Among 
ourselves there has, happily, been of late years a remarka- 
ble growth of this social self-consciousness ; and we believe 
that to this is chiefly ascribable the impression, that com 
mercial mal-practices are increasing. 

Such facts as have come down to us respecting the 
trade of past times, confirm this view. In his " Complete 
English Tradesman," Defoe mentions, among other man- 
oeuvres of retailers, the false lights which they introduced 
into their shops, for the purpose of giving delusive appear- 
ances to their goods. He comments on the " shop rheto- 
rick," the " flux of falsehoods," which tradesmen habitually 
uttered to their customers ; and quotes their defence as 
being that they could not live without lying. He says, 
too, that there was scarce a shopkeeper who had not a 
bag of spurious or debased coin, from which he gave 
change whenever he could ; and that men, even the most 
honest, triumphed in their skill in getting rid of bad 
money. These facts show that the mercantile morals oi 
that day were, at any rate, not better than ours ; and it 
we call to mind the numerous Acts of Parliament passed 
in old times to prevent frauds of all kinds, we perceive 



138 THE MORALS OF EBADE. 

the like implication. As much may, indeed, be safely in 
ferred from the general state of society. 

When, reign after reign, governments debased the 
coinage, the moral tone of the middle classes could scarcely 
have been higher than now. Among generations whose 
sympathy with the claims of fellow-creatures was so weak, 
that the slave-trade was not only thought justifiable, but 
the initiator of it was rewarded by permission to record 
the feat in his coat of arms ; it is hardly possible that men 
respected the claims of their fellow-citizens more than at 
present. Times characterized by an administration of jus- 
tice so inefficient, that there were in London nests of 
criminals who defied the law, and on all high roads rob- 
bers who eluded it, cannot have been distinguished by 
just mercantile dealings. While, conA-ersely, an age 
which, like ours, has seen so many equitable social 
changes thrust on the legislature by public opinion, is 
very unlikely to be an age in which the transactions 
between individuals have been growing more inequitable. 
Yet, on the other hand, it is undeniable that many of the 
dishonesties we have described are of modern origin. 
Not a few of them have become established during 
the last thirty years ; and others are even now aris- 
ing. How are the seeming contradictions to be recon- 
ciled ? 

We believe the reconciliation is not difficult. It lies 
in the fact that while the great and direct frauds have 
been diminishing, the small and indirect frauds have been 
increasing : alike in variety and in number. And this 
admission we take to be quite consistent with the opinion 
that the standard of commercial morals is higher than it 
was. For, if we omit, as excluded from the question, the 
penal restraints — religious and legal — and ask what is the 
ultimate moral restraint to the aggression of man on man; 
we find it to be — sympathy with the pain inflicted. Xo\? 



COUNTER-TENDENCIES. 139 

the keenness of the sympathy, depending on the vividness 
with which this pain is realized, varies with the conditions 
of the case. It may be active enough to check misdeeds 
which will cause great suffering ; and yet not be active 
enough to check misdeeds which will cause but slight 
annoyance. While sufficiently acute to prevent a man 
from doing that which will entail immediate injury on a 
given person ; it may not be sufficiently acute to prevent 
him from doing that which will entail remote injuries on 
unknown persons. And we find the facts to agree with 
this deduction, that the moral restraint varies according 
to the clearness with which the evil consequences are con- 
ceived. Many a one who would shrink from picking a 
pocket does not scruple to adulterate his goods ; and he 
who never dreams of passing base coin, will yet be a party 
to joint-stock-bank deceptions. Hence, as we say, the 
multiplication of the more subtle and complex forms of 
fraud, is consistent with a general progress in morality ; 
provided it is accompanied with a decrease in the grosser 
forms of fraud. 

But the question which most concerns us is, not whether 
the morals of trade are better or worse than they have 
been ? but rather — why are they so bad ? Why in this 
civilized state of ours, is there so much that betrays the 
cunning selfishness of the savage ? Why, after the care- 
ful inculcations of rectitude during education, comes there 
in after-life all this knavery ? Why, in spite of all the 
exhortations to which the commercial classes listen every 
Sunday, do they next morning recommence their evil 
deeds ? What is this so potent agency which almost 
neutralizes the discipline of education, of law, of re- 
.igion ? 

Various subsidiary causes that might be assigned 
mii^t be passed over, that we may have space to deal with 



140 THE MOEAES OF TEADE. 

the chief cause. In an exhaustive statement, something 
would have to be said on the credulity of consumers, 
which leads them to believe in representations of impossi- 
ble advantages ; and something, too, on their greediness, 
which, ever prompting them to look for more than they 
ought to get, encourages the sellers to offer delusive bar 
gains. The increased difficulty of living consequent on 
growing pressure of population, might perhaps come in as 
a part cause; and that greater cost of bringing up a family, 
which results from the higher standard of education, might 
be added. But all these are relatively insignificant. The 
great inciter of these trading mal-practices is, intense de- 
sire for wealth. And if we ask — Why this intense desire ? 
the reply is — It results from the indiscriminate respect 
paid to icectlth. 

To be distinguished from the common herd — to be 
somebody — to make a name, a position — this is the univer- 
sal ambition ; and to accumulate riches, is alike the surest 
and the easiest way of fulfilling this ambition. Very early 
in life all learn this. At school, the court paid to one 
whose parents have called in their carriage to see him, is 
conspicuous ; while the poor boy, whose insufficient stock 
of clothes implies the small means of his family, soon has 
burnt into his memory the fact that poverty is contempti- 
ble. On entering the world, the lessons that may have 
been taught about the nobility of self-sacrifice, the rever- 
ence due to genius, the admirableness of high integrity, 
are quickly neutralized by experience : men's actions prov- 
ing that these are not their standards of respect. It is 
soon perceived that while abundant outward marks of 
deference from fellow-citizens, may almost certainlv be 
gained by directing every energy to the accumulation of 
property, they are but rarely to be gained in any other 
way; and that even in the few cases where they are other- 
wise gained, they are not given with entire unreserve : bul 



TRUE CAUSE OF THE EVIL. 141 

are commonly joined with a more or less manifest display 
of patronage. When, seeing this, the young man further 
sees that while the acquisition of property is quite possi- 
ble with his* mediocre endowments, the acquirement of 
distinction by brilliant discoveries, or heroic acts, or high 
achievements in art, implies faculties and feelings which 
he does not possess ; it is not difficult to understand why 
he devotes himself heart and soul to business. 

We do not mean to say that men act on the consciously 
reasoned-out conclusions thus indicated; but we mean 
that these conclusions are the unconsciously-formed prod- 
ucts of their daily experience. From early childhood, 
the sayings and doings of all around them have generated 
the idea, that wealth and respectability are two sides of 
the same thing. This idea, growing with their growth, 
and strengthening with their strength, becomes at last 
almost what we may call an organic conviction. And 
this organic conviction it is, which prompts the expendi- 
ture of all their energies in money-making. We contend 
that the chief stimulus is not the desire for the wealth 
Ltself ; but for the applause and position which the wealth 
brings. And in this belief, we find ourselves at one with 
various intelligent traders with whom we have talked on 
the matter. 

It is incredible that men should make the sacrifices, 
mental and bodily, which they do, merely to get the 
material benefits which money purchases. Who would 
undertake an extra burden of business for the purpose of 
getting a cellar of choice wines for his own drinking? 
He who does it, does it that he may have choice wines to 
give his guests and gain their praises. What merchant 
would spend an additional hour at his office daily, merely 
that he might move into a larger house in a better quar- 
ter ? In so far as health and comfort are concerned, he 
knows he will be a loser by the exchange; and would 



142 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

never be induced to make it, were it not for the increased 
social consideration which the new house will bring him. 
Where is the man who would lie awake at nights devis- 
ing means of increasing his income, in the hope of being- 
able to provide his wife with a carriage, were the use of 
the carriage the sole consideration ? It is because of the 
'eclat which the carriage will give, that he enters on these 
additional anxieties. So manifest, so trite, indeed, are 
these truths, that we should be ashamed of insisting on 
them, did not our argument require it. 

For if the desire for that homage which wealth brings, 
is the chief stimulus to these strivings after wealth ; then 
is the giving of this homage (when given, as it is, with 
but little discrimination) the chief cause of the dishonesties 
into which these strivings betray mercantile men. "When 
the shopkeeper, on the strength of a prosperous year and 
favourable prospects, has yielded to his wife's persuasions, 
and replaced the old furniture with new, at an outlay 
greater than his income covers — when, instead of the 
hoped-for increase, the next year brings a decrease in his 
returns — when he finds that his expenses are out-running 
his revenue ; then does he fall under the strongest tempta- 
tion to adopt some newly-introduced adulteration or other 
mal-practice. When, having by display gained a certain 
recognition, the wholesale trader begins to give dinners 
appropriate only to those of ten times his income, with 
other expensive entertainments to match — when, having 
for a time carried on this style at a cost greater than he 
can afford, he finds that he cannot discontinue it without 
giving up his position: then is he most strongly prompted 
to enter into larger transactions; to trade beyond his 
means ; to seek undue credit ; to get into that ever-com- 
plicating series of misdeeds, which ends in disgraceful 
bankruptcy. And if these are the facts — the undeniable 
facts — then is it an unavoidable conclusion that the blind 



THE BLIND HOMAGE TO WEALTH. 143 

admiration which society gives to mere wealth, and the 
display of wealth, is the chief source of these multitudi- 
nous immoralities. 

Yes, the evil is deeper than appears — draws its nutri- 
ment from far below the surface. This gigantic system 
of dishonesty, branching out into every conceivable form 
of fraud, has roots that run underneath our whole social 
fabric, and, sending fibres into every house, suck up 
strength from our daily sayings and doings. In every 
dining-room a rootlet finds food, when the conversation 
turns on So-and-so's successful speculations, his purchase 
of an estate, his probable worth — on this man's recent 
large legacy, and the other's advantageous match; for 
being thus talked about is one form of that tacit respect 
which men struggle for. Every drawing-room furnishes 
nourishment, in the admiration awarded to costliness — to 
silks that are " rich," that is, expensive ; to dresses that 
contain an enormous quantity of material, that is, are 
expensive ; to laces that are hand-made, that is, expen- 
sive; to diamonds that are rare, that is, expensive; to 
china that is old, that is, expensive. And from scores of 
small remarks and minutiae of behaviour, which, in all 
circles, hourly imply how completely the idea of respecta- 
bility involves that of costly externals, there is drawn 
fresh pabulum. 

We are all implicated. We all, whether with self- 
approbation or not, give expression to the established 
feeling. Even he who disapproves this feeling, finds him- 
self unable to treat virtue in threadbare apparel with a 
cordiality as great as that which he would show to the 
same virtue endowed with prosperity. Scarcely a man is 
to be found who would not behave with more civility to a 
knave in broadcloth than to a knave in fustian. Though 
for the deference which they have shown to the vulgar 
rich, or the dishonestly successful, men afterwards com- 
1 



144 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 

pound with their consciences by privately venting their 
contempt ; yet when they again come face to face with 
these imposing externals covering worthlessness, they do 
as before. And so long as imposing worthlessness gets 
the visible marks of respect, while the disrespect felt for 
it is hidden, it naturally nourishes. 

Hence, then, is it that men persevere in these evil 
practices which all condemn. They can so purchase a 
homage, which if not genuine, is yet, so far as appearances 
go, as good as the best. To one whose wealth has been 
gained by a life of frauds, what matters it that his name 
is in all circles a synonym of roguery ? Has he not been 
conspicuously honoured by being twice elected mayor of 
his town? (we state a fact) and does not this, joined to 
the personal consideration shown him, outweigh in his 
estimation all that is said against him : of which he 
hears scarcely any thing ? When, not many years after 
the exposure of his inequitable dealing, a trader attains to 
the highest civic distinction which the kingdom has to 
offer; and that, too, through the instrumentality of those 
who best know his delinquency; is not the fact an encour- 
agement to him, and to all others, to sacrifice rectitude 
to aggrandizement ? If, after listening to a sermon that 
has by implication denounced the dishonesties he has been 
guilty of, the rich ill-doer finds, on leaving church, that 
his neighbours cap to him ; does not this tacit approval 
go far to neutralize the effect of all he has heard ? The 
truth is, that with the great majority of men, the visible 
expression of social opinion is far the most efficient of in- 
centives and restraints. Let any one who wishes to esti- 
mate the strength of this control, propose to himself to 
walk through the streets in the dress of a dustman, or 
hawk vegetables from door to door. Let him feel, as lie 
probably will, that he had rather do something morally 
wrong than commit such a breach of usage, and suffer tlio 



PUBLIC OPINION RESPONSIBLE. 145 

resulting derision. And he will then "better estimate how 
powerful a curb to men is the open disapproval of their 
fellows ; and how, conversely, the outward applause of 
their fellows is a stimulus surpassing all others in intensity. 
Fully realizing which facts, he will see that the immorali- 
ties of trade are in great part traceable to an immoral 
public opinion. 

Let none infer, from what has been said, that the pay- 
ment of respect to wealth rightly acquired and rightly 
used, is deprecated. In its original meaning, and in due 
degree, the feeling which prompts such respect is good. 
Primarily, wealth is the sign of mental power ; and this 
is always respectable. To have honestly-acquired prop- 
erty, implies intelligence, energy, self-control; and these 
are worthy of the homage that is indirectly paid to them 
by admiring their results. Moreover, the good adminis- 
tration and increase of inherited property, also requires 
its virtues ; and therefore demands its share of approba- 
tion. And besides being applauded for their display of 
faculty, men who gain and increase wealth are to be ap- 
plauded as public benefactors. For he who as manufac- 
turer or merchant, has, without injustice to others, realized 
a fortune, is thereby proved to have discharged his func- 
tions better than those who have been less successful. 
By greater skill, better judgment, or more economy than 
his competitors, he has afforded the public greater advan- 
tages. His extra profits are but a share of the extra pro- 
duce obtained by the same expenditure : the other share 
going to the consumers. And similarly, the landowner 
who, by judicious outlay, has increased the value (that is, 
the productiveness) of his estate, has thereby added to the 
stock of national capital. By all means, then, let the right 
acquisition and proper use of wealth, have their due share 
of admiration. 

But that which we condemn as the chief cause of com- 



146 THE MOEALS OF TRADE. 

mercial dishonesty, is the indiscriminate admiration of 
wealth — an admiration that has little or no reference to 
the character of the possessor. When, as very generally 
happens, the external signs are reverenced, where they 
signify no internal worthiness — nay, even where they 
cover internal unworthiness ; then does the feeling become 
vicious. It is this idolatry which worships the symbol 
apart from the thing symbolized, that is the root of all 
these evils we have been exposing. So long as men pay 
homage to those social benefactors who have grown rich 
honestly, they give a wholesome stimulus to industry; but 
when they accord a share of their homage to those social 
malefactors who have grown rich dishonestly, then do they 
foster corruption — then do they become accomplices in all 
these frauds of commerce. 

As for remedy, it manifestly follows that there is none 
save a purified public opinion. When that abhorrence 
which society now shows to direct theft, is shown to theft 
of all degrees of indirectness ; then will these mercantile 
vices disappear. When not only the trader who adulter- 
ates or gives short measure, but also the merchant who 
overtrades, the bank-director who countenances an ex- 
aggerated report, and the railway-director who repudi- 
ates his guarantee, come to be regarded as of the same 
genus as the pickpocket, and are treated witli like dis- 
dain ; then will the morals of trade become what they 
should be. 

We have little hope, however, that any such higher 
tone of public opinion will shortly be reached. The pres- 
ent condition of things appears to be, in great measure, a 
necessary accompaniment of our present phase of progress. 
Throughout the civilized world, especially in England, 
and above all in America, social activity is almost wholly 
expended in material development. To subjugate Xaturc, 



THE GEEAT TASK OF THE AGE. 147 

and bring the powers of production and distribution to 
their highest perfection, is the task of our age ; and proba- 
bly of many future ages. And as in times when national 
defence and conquest were the chief desiderata, military 
achievement was honoured above all other things ; so now, 
when the chief desideratum is industrial growth, honour 
is most conspicuously given to that which generally indi- 
cates the aiding of industrial growth. The English na- 
tion at present displays what we may call the commercial 
diathesis ; and the undue admiration for wealth appears 
to be its concomitant — a relation still more conspicuous in 
the worship of " the almighty dollar " by the Americans. 
And while the commercial diathesis, with its accompany- 
ing standard of distinction, continues, we fear the evils we 
have been delineating can be but partially cured. It 
seems hopeless to expect that men will distinguish be- 
tween that wealth which represents personal superiority 
and benefits done to society, from that which does not. 
The symbols, the externals, have all the world through 
swayed the masses; and must long continue to do so. 
Even the cultivated, who are on their guard against the 
bias of associated ideas, and try to separate the real from 
the seeming, cannot escape the influence of current opinion. 
We must, therefore, content ourselves with looking for a 
slow amelioration. 

Something, however, may even now be done by vigor- 
ous protest against adoration of mere success. And it is 
important that it should be done, considering how this 
vicious sentiment is being fostered. When we have one 
of our leading moralists preaching, with increasing vehem- 
ence, the doctrine of santification by force — when we are 
told that while a selfishness troubled with qualms of con- 
science is contemptible, a selfishness intense enough to 
trample down every thing in the unscrupulous pursuit of 
its ends, is worthy of all admiration — when we find that 



ti8 - THE MORALS OF TEADE. 

if it be Gufficiently great, power, no matter of what kind 
or how directed, is held up for our reverence ; we may 
fear lest the prevalent applause of mere success, together 
with the commercial vices which it stimulates, should be 
increased rather than diminished. 2\ot at all by this hero- 
worship grown into brute-worship, is society to be made 
better ; but by exactly the opposite — by a stern criticism 
of the means through which success has been achieved ; 
and by according honour to the higher and less selfish 
modes of activity. 

And happily the signs of this more moral public opin- 
ion are already showing themselves. It is becoming a 
tacitly-received doctrine that the rich should not, as in by- 
gone times, spend their lives in personal gratification; 
but should devote them to the general welfare. Year by 
year is the improvement of the people occupying a larger 
share of the attention of the upper classes. Year by year 
are they voluntarily devoting more and more energy to fur- 
thering the material and mental progress of the ma— & 
And those among them who do not join in the discharge 
of these high functions, are beginning to be looked upon 
with more or less contempt by their own order. This 
latest and most hopeful fact in human history — this new 
and better chivalry — promises to evolve a higher standard 
of honour; and so to ameliorate many evils : among others 
those which we have detailed. "When wealth obtained 
by illegitimate means inevitably brings nothing but dis- 
grace — when to wealth rightly acquired is accorded only 
its due share of homage, while the greatest homage is 
given to those who consecrate their energies and their 
means to the noblest ends; then may we be sure that 
along with other accompanying benefits, the morals i f 
trade will be greatly purified. 



IV, 

PEES0NAL BEAUTY. 



IT is a commonly-expressed opinion that beauty of char 
acter and beauty of aspect are unrelated. I have 
never been able to reconcile myself to this opinion. In- 
deed, even those who hold it do so in a very incomplete 
sense ; for it is observable that notwithstanding their 
theory they continue to manifest surprise when they find a 
mean deed committed by one of noble countenance — a fact 
clearly implying that underneath their professed induction 
lies a still living conviction at variance with it. 

Whence this conviction ? How is it that a belief in 
the connection between worth and beauty primarily exists 
in all ? It cannot be innate. Must it not, then, be from 
early experiences ? And must it not be that in those who 
continue to believe in this connection, spite of their reason- 
ings, the early and wide experiences outweigh the later 
and exceptional ones ? 

Avoiding, however, the metaphysics of the question, 
*et us consider it physiologically. 

Those who do not admit the relationship between men- 
tal and facial beauty, usually remark that the true connec- 
tion is between character and expression. While they 
doubt, or rather deny, that the permanent forms of the 



150 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

features are in any way indices of the forms of the mind, 
they assert that the transitory forms of the features are 
such indices. These positions are inconsistent. For is it 
not clear that the transitory forms, by perpetual repeti- 
tion, register themselves on the face, and produce perma- 
nent forms ? Does not an habitual frown by-and-by leave 
ineffaceable marks on the brow ? Is not a chronic scorn- 
fulness presently followed by a modified set in the angles 
of the mouth ? Does not that compression of the lips 
significant of great determination, often stereotype itself, 
and so give a changed form to the lower part of the face ? 
And if there be any truth in the doctrine of hereditary 
transmission, must there not be a tendency to the reap- 
pearance of these modifications as new types of feature in 
the offspring ? In brief, may we not say that expression 
is feature in the making ; and that if expression means 
something, the form of feature produced by it means 
something ? 

Possibly it will be urged, in reply, that changes of 
expression affect only the muscles and skin of the face ; 
that the permanent marks they produce can extend but to 
these ; that, nevertheless, the beauty of a face is mainlj 
dependent upon the form of its bony framework ; that 
hence, in this chief respect, there cannot take place such 
modifications as those described ; and that, therefore, the 
relationship of aspect of character, while it may hold in 
the details, does not hold in the generals. 

The rejoinder is, that the framework of the face is 
modified by modifications in the tissues which cover it. 
It is an established doctrine in physiology, that through- 
out the skeleton the greater or less development of bones 
is dependent on the greater or less development, that is, 
on the exercise, of the attached muscles. Hence, perma- 
nent changes in the muscular adjustments of the face will 
be followed by permanent changes in its osseous structure. 



EXPRESSION OF FACIAL FEATURES. 151 

Not to dwell in general statements, however, which 
with most weigh but little, I will cite a few cases in which 
the connection between organic ugliness and mental in- 
feriority, and the converse connection between organic 
beauty and comparative perfection of mind, are distinctly 
traceable. 

It will be admitted that the projecting jaw, character- 
istic of the lower human races, is a facial defect — is a trait 
which no sculptor would give to an ideal bust. At the 
same time, it is an ascertained fact that prominence of jaw 
is associated in the mammalia generally with comparative 
lack of intelligence. This relationship, it is true, does not 
hold good uniformly. It is not a direct but an indirect 
one ; and is thus liable to be disturbed. Nevertheless, it 
holds good among all the higher tribes ; and on inquiry 
we shall see why it must hold good. In conformity with 
the great physiological law that organs develop in pro- 
portion as they are exercised, the jaws must be relatively 
large where the demands made upon them are great ; and 
must diminish in size as their functions become less numer- 
ous and less onerous. Now, in all the lower classes of 
animals the jaws are the sole organs of manipulation — are 
used not only for mastication, but for seizing, carrying, 
gnawing, and, indeed, for every thing save locomotion, 
which is the solitary office performed by the limbs. Ad- 
vancing upwards, we find that the fore-limbs begin to aid 
the jaws, and gradually to relieve them of part of their 
duties. Some creatures use them for burrowing ; some, 
as the felines, for striking ; many, to keep steady the prey 
they are tearing ; and when we arrive at the quadrumana, 
whose fore-limbs possess so complete a power of prehen- 
sion that objects can not only be seized, but carried and 
pulled to pieces by them, we find that the jaws are used 
for little else than to break down the food. Accompany- 
ing this series of changes, we see a double change in the 



L52 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

form of the head. The increased complexity of the limbs, 
the greater variety of actions they perform, and the more 
numerous perceptions they give, imply a greater develop- 
ment of the brain and of its bony envelope. At the same 
time, the size of the jaws has diminished in correspond- 
ence with the diminution of their functions. And by this 
simultaneous protrusion of the upper part of the cranium 
and recession of its lower part, what is called the facial 
angle has increased. 

Well, these coordinate changes in functions and forms 
have continued during the civilization of the human race. 
On contrasting the European and the Papuan, we see that 
what the one cuts in two with knife and fork, the other 
tears with his jaws ; what the one softens by cooking, the 
other eats in its hard, raw state ; the bones which the one 
utilizes by stewing, the other gnaws ; and for sundry of 
the mechanical manipulations which the one has tools for, 
the other uses his teeth. From the Bushman state up- 
wards, there has been a gradual increase in the complex- 
ity of our appliances. We not only use our hands to save 
our jaws, but we make implements to save our hands ; and 
in our engine factories may be found implements for the 
making of implements. This progression in the arts of 
life has had intellectual progression for its necessary cor- 
relative. Each new complication requires a new incre- 
ment of intelligence for its production ; and the daily use 
of it developes the intelligence of all still further. Thus 
that simultaneous protrusion of the brain and recession of 
the jaws, which among lower animals has accompanied in- 
crease of skill and sagacity, has continued during the ad- 
vance of Humanity from barbarism to civilization ; and 
has been throughout, the result of a discipline involving 
increase of mental power. And so it becomes manifest 
that there exists an organic relationship between that pro- 
tuberance of the jaws which we consider ugly, and a cer- 
tain inferiority of nature. 



DEFECTS OF FACIAL FEATURES. 153 

Again, that lateral jutting-out of the cheek-bones, 
which similarly characterizes the lower races of men, and 
which is similarly thought by us a detraction from beauty, 
is similarly related to lower habits and lower intelligence. 
The jaws are closed by the temporal muscles ; and these 
are consequently the chief active agents in biting and 
mastication. In proportion as the jaws have much work, 
and correspondingly large size, must the temporal muscles 
be massive. But the temporal muscles pass between the 
skull and the zygomatic arches, or lateral parts of the 
cheek-bones. Consequently, where the temporal muscles 
are massive, the spaces between the zygomatic arches and 
the skull must be great ; and the lateral projection of the 
zygomatic arches great also, as we see it in the Mongolian 
and other uncivilized races. Like large jaws, therefore, 
of which it is an accompaniment, excessive size of the 
cheek-bones is both an ugliness and an index of imper- 
fection. 

Certain other defects of feature, between which and 
mental defects it is not thus easy to trace the connection, 
may yet be fairly presumed to have such connection in 
virtue of their constant coexistence with the foregoing 
ones : alike in the uncivilized races and in the young of 
the civilized races. Peculiarities of face which we find 
regularly associated with those just shown to be signifi- 
cant of intellectual inferiority, and which like them disap- 
pear as barbarism grows into civilization, may reasonably 
be concluded to have like them a psychological meaning. 
Thus is it with depression of the bridge of the nose ; 
which is a characteristic both of barbarians and of our 
babes, possessed by them in common with the higher 
quadrumana. Thus, also, is it with that forward opening 
of the nostrils, which renders them conspicuous in a front 
view of the face — a trait alike of infants, savages, and 
ipe«. And the same may be said of wide-spread alae to 



154 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

the nose, of great width between the eyes, of long mouth, 
of large mouth — indeed of all those leading peculiarities 
of feature which are by general consent called ugly. 

And then mark how, conversely, the type of face usu- 
ally admitted to be the most beautiful, is one that is not 
simply free from these peculiarities, but possesses opposite 
ones. In the ideal Greek head, the forehead projects so 
much, and the jaws recede so much, as to rende;' the facial 
anode larger than we ever find it in fact. The cheek-bones 
are so small as scarcely to be traceable. The bridge of 
the nose is so high as to be almost or quite in a line with 
the forehead. The aire of the nose join the face with but 
little obliquity. In the front view the nostrils are almost 
invisible. The mouth is small, and the upper lip short, 
and deeply concave. The outer angles of the eyes, instead 
of keeping the horizontal line, as is usual, or being directed 
upwards, as in the Mongolian type, are directed slightly 
downwards. And the form of the brow indicates an unu- 
sually large frontal sinus — a characteristic entirely absent 
in children, in the lowest of the human races, and in the 
allied genera. 

If, then, recession of the forehead, protuberance of the 
jaws, and largeness of the cheek-bones, three leading ele- 
ments of ugliness, are demonstrably indicative of mental 
inferiority — if such other facial defects as great width be- 
tween the eyes, flatness of the nose, spreading oi^ its ala\ 
frontward opening of the nostrils, length of the mouth, 
and largeness of the lips, are habitually associated with 
these, and disappear along with them as intelligence in- 
creases, both in the race and in the individual ; is it not a 
fair inference that all such faulty traits of feature signify 
deficiencies of mind ? If, further, our ideal of human 
beauty is characterized not simply by the absence of these 
traits, but by the presence of opposite ones — if this ideal, 
%s found in sculptures of the Greek gods, has been Q3ed 



FORMS OF FEATURE AND FORMS OF MIND. 155 

to represent superhuman power and intelligence — and if 
the race so using it were themselves distinguished by a 
mental superiority, which, if we consider their disadvan- 
tages, produced results unparalleled ; have we not yet 
stronger reasons for concluding that the chief components 
of beauty and ugliness are severally connected with per- 
fection and imperfection of mental nature ? And when, 
lastly, we remember that the variations of feature consti- 
tuting expression are confessedly significant of character 
— when we remember that these tend by repetition to 
organize themselves, to affect not only the skin and mus- 
cles but the bones of the face, and to be transmitted to 
offspring — when we thus find that there is a psychological 
meaning alike in each passing adjustment of the features, 
in the marks that habitual adjustments leave, in the marks 
inherited from ancestors, and in those main outlines of the 
facial bones and integuments indicating the type or race ; 
are we not almost forced to the conclusion that all forms 
of feature are related to forms of mind, and that we con- 
sider them admirable or otherwise according as the traits 
of nature they imply are admirable or otherwise ? 

In the extremes the relationship is demonstrable. 
That transitory aspects of face accompany transitory 
mental states, and that we consider these aspects ugly or 
beautiful according as the mental states they accompany 
are ugly or beautiful, no one doubts. That those perma- 
nent and most marked aspects of face dependent on the 
bony framework, accompany those permanent and most 
marked mental states which express themselves in barbar- 
ism and civilization ; and that we consider as beautiful 
those which accompany mental superiority, and as ugly 
those which accompany mental inferiority, is equally cer- 
tain. And if this connection unquestionably holds in the 
extremes — if, as judged by average facts, and by our 
"iailf-instinctive convictions, it also holds more or less visi 



L56 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

bly in intermediate cases, it becomes an almost irresistible 
induction, that the aspects which please us are the outward 
correlatives of inward perfections, while the aspects which 
displease us are the outward correlatives of inward imper- 
fections. 

I am quite aware that when tested in detail this induc- 
tion seems not to be borne out. I know that there arc- 
often grand natures behind plain faces ; and that line 
countenances frequently hide small souls. But these 
anomalies do not destroy the general truth of the law, any 
more than the perturbation!! of planets destroy the general 
ellipticity of their orbits. Some of them, indeed, may be 
readily accounted for. There are many faces spoiled by 
haying one part perfectly developed while the rest of the 
features are ordinary ; others by the misproportion of feat* 
ores that are in themselves good ; others, again, by de- 
fects of skin, which, though they indicate defects of vis- 
ceral constitution, have manifestly no relationship to the 
higher parts of the nature. Moreover, the facts that have 
been assigned afford reason for thinking that the hading 
elements of facial beauty are not directly associated with 
moral characteristics, but with intellectual ones — are the 
results of long-continued civilized habits, long cessation 
of domestic barbarism, long culture of the manipulative 
powers; and so may coexist with emotional traits not at 
all admirable. It is true that the highest intellectual mani- 
festations imply a good balance of the higher feelings ; but 
it is also true that great quickness, great sagacity in ordi- 
nary affairs, great practical skill, can be possessed without 
these, and very frequently are so. The prevalent beauty 
of the Italians, coexisting though it does with a low moral 
state, becomes, on this hypothesis, reconcileable with the 
general induction ; as do also many of the anomalies avc 
see around us. 

There is, boa ever, a more satisfactory explanation tc 



EFFECT OF MIXTUEE OF EACES. 157 

be offered than any of these — an explanation which I think 
renders it possible to admit the seeming contradictions 
which the detailed facts present, and yet to hold by the 
theory. 

All the civilized races, and probably also the uncivil- 
ized ones, are of mixed origin ; and, as a consequence, 
have physical and mental constitutions in which are min- 
gled several aboriginal oonstitutions more or less differing 
from each other. This heterogeneity of constitution seems 
to me the chief cause of the incongruities between aspect 
and nature which we daily meet with. Given a pure race, 
subject to constant conditions of climate, food, and habits 
of life, and there is every reason to believe that between 
external appearance and internal structure there will be a 
constant connection. Unite this race with another equally 
pure, but adapted to different conditions and having a 
correspondingly different physique, face, and morale, and 
there will occur in the descendants, not a homogeneous 
mean between the two constitutions, but a seemingly ir- 
regular combination of characteristics of the one with 
characteristics of the other — one feature traceable to this 
race, a second to that, and a third uniting the attributes 
of both ; while in disposition and intellect there will be 
found a like medley of the two originals. 

The fact that the forms and qualities of any offspring 
are not a mean between the forms and qualities of its 
parents, but a mixture of them, is illustrated in every 
family. The features and peculiarities of a child are sepa- 
rately referred by observers to father and mother respec- 
tively — nose and mouth to this side; colour of the hair 
and eyes to that — this moral peculiarity to the first ; this 
intellectual one to the second — and so with contour and 
idiosyncrasies of body. Manifestly if each organ or fac- 
ulty in a child was an average of the two developments 
of such organ or faculty in the parents, it would follow 



158 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

that all brothers and sisters should be alike ; or should, at 
any rate, differ no more than their parents differed from 
year to year. So far, however, from finding that this is 
the case, we find not only that great irregularities are pro 
duced by intermixture of traits, but that there is no con- 
stancy in the mode of intermixture, or the extent of varia- 
tion produced by it. 

This imperfect union of parental constitutions in the 
constitution of offspring, is yet more clearly illustrated by 
the reappearance of peculiarities traceable to bygone gen- 
erations. Forms, dispositions, and diseases, possessed by 
distant progenitors, habitually come out from time to time 
in descendants. Some single feature, or some solitary 
tendency, will again and again show itself, after being 
apparently lost. It is notoriously thus with gout, scrof- 
ula, and insanity. On some of the monumental brasses in 
our old churches are engraved heads having traits still 
persistent in the same families. Wherever, as in portrait 
galleries, a register of ancestral faces has been kept, the 
same fact is more or less apparent. The pertinacity with 
which particular characteristics reproduce themselves is 
well exemplified in America, where traces of negro blood 
can be detected in the finger nails, when no longer visible 
in the complexion. Among breeders of animals it is well 
known that, after several generations in which no visible 
modifications were traceable, the effects of a cross will 
suddenly make their appearance. In all which facts we 
see the general law that an organism produced from two 
organisms constitutionally different, is not a homogeneous 
mean ; but is made up of separate elements, taken in varia- 
ble manner and proportion from the originals. 

In a recent number of the Quarterly Journal of tlie 
Agricultural Society were published some fitcts respecting 
the mixture of French and English races of sheep, bearing 
collaterally on this point. Sundry attempts had been 



RELATION OF CONSTITUTIONS. 159 

made to improve the poor French breeds by our fine 
English ones. For a long time these attempts failed. 
The hybrids bore no trace of their English ancestry ; but 
were as dwarfed and poverty-stricken as their French 
dams. Eventually the cause of failure was found to lie 
in the relative heterogeneity and homogeneity of the two 
constitutions. The superior English sheep were of mixed 
race ; the French sheep, though inferior, were of pure 
race ; and the compound, imperfectly coordinated consti- 
tution of the one could not maintain itself against the 
simple and completely-balanced constitution of the other. 
This, at first an hypothesis, was presently demonstrated. 
French sheep of mixed constitution having been obtained 
by uniting two of the pure French breeds, it was found 
that these hybrid French sheep, when united with the 
English ones, produced a cross in which the English char- 
acteristics were duly displayed. Now, this inability of a 
mixed constitution to stand its ground against an unmixed 
one, quite accords with the above induction. An unmixed 
constitution is one in which all the organs are exactly fit- 
ted to each other — are perfectly balanced ; the system, as 
a whole, is in stable equilibrium. A mixed constitution, 
on the contrary, being made up of organs belonging to 
two separate sets, cannot have them in exact fitness — can- 
not have them perfectly balanced ; and a system in com- 
paratively unstable equilibrium results. But in proportion 
to the stability of the equilibrium will be the power to 
resist disturbing forces. Hence, when two constitutions, 
in stable and unstable equilibrium respectively, become 
disturbing forces to each other, the unstable one will be 
overthrown, and the stable one will assert itself unchanged. 
This imperfect coordination of parts in a mixed con- 
stitution, and this consequent instability of its equilib- 
rium, are intimately connected with the vexed question 
of genera, species, and varieties ; and, with a view partly 



160 PERSONAL BEAT7TY. 

to the in trinsic interest of this question, and partly to the 
further elucidation of the topic in hand, I must again 
digress. 

The current physiological test of distinct species is the 
production of a non-prolific hybrid. The ability of the 
offspring to reproduce itself is held to indicate that its 
parents are of the same species, however widely they may 
differ in appearance ; and its inability to do this is taken 
as proof that, nearly allied as its parents may seem, 
they are distinct in kind. Of late, however, facts have 
been accumulating that tend more and more to throw 
doubt on this generalization. Cattle breeders have estab- 
lished it as a general fact, that the offspring of two differ- 
ent breeds of sheep or oxen dwindle away in a few gen- 
erations if allied with themselves ; and that a good result 
can be obtained only by mixing them with one or other 
of the original breeds — a fact implying that what is true 
of so-called species, is, under a modified form, true of va- 
rieties also. The same phenomena are observable in the 
mixtures of ditferent races of men. They, too, it is al- 
leged, cannot maintain themselves as separate varieties ; 
but die out unless there is intermarriage with the origi- 
nals. In brief, it seems that the hybrids produced from 
two distinct races of organisms may die out in the first, 
second, third, fourth, fifth, etc., generation, according as 
the constitutional difference of the races is greater or less. 

Now, the experience of the French sheep-breeders, 
above quoted, suggests a rationale of these various results. 
For if it be true that an organism produced by two unlike 
organisms is not a mean between them, but a mixture of 
parts of the one with parts of the other — if it be true that 
these parts belonging to two different sets are of necessity 
imperfectly coordinated ; then it becomes manifest that 
in proportion as the difference between the parent organ- 
isms is greater or less, the defects of coordination in the 



\ 



CONGRUITY OF THE PAEENTAL ELEMENTS. 161 

offspring will be greater or less. Whence it follows, that 
according to the degree of organic incongruity between 
the parents, we may have every gradation in the offspring, 
from a combination of parts so incongruous that it will 
not work at all, up to a combination complete enough to 
subsist permanently as a race. 

And this is just what we find in fact. Between organ- 
isms widely differing in character, no intermediate organ- 
ism is possible. When the difference is less, a non-prolific 
hybrid is produced — an organism so badly coordinated as 
to be capable only of incomplete life. When the differ- 
ence is still less, there results an organism capable of re- 
producing itself; but not of bequeathing to its offspring 
complete constitutions. And as the degrees of difference 
are further diminished, the incompleteness of constitution 
is longer and longer in making its appearance ; until we 
come to those varieties of the same species which differ 
so slightly that their offspring are as permanent as them- 
selves. Even in these, however, the organic equilibrium 
seems less perfect ; as illustrated in the case I have quoted. 
And in connection with this inference, it would be inter- 
esting to inquire whether pure constitutions are not supe- 
rior to mixed ones, in their power of maintaining the bal- 
ance of vital functions under disturbing conditions. Is it 
not a fact that the pure breeds are hardier than the mixed 
ones ? Are not the mixed ones, though superior in size, 
less capable of resisting unfavourable influences — extremes 
of temperature, bad food, &c. ? And is not the like true 
of mankind ? 

Returning to the topic in hand, it is manifest that these 
facts and reasonings serve further to enforce the general 
truth, that the offspring of two organisms not identical in 
constitution is a heterogeneous mixture of the two, and 
not a homogeneous mean between them. 

If, then, bearing in mind this truth, we remember the 



162 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 

composite character of tlie civilized races — the mingling 
in ourselves, for example, of Celt, Saxon, Xorman, Dane, 
with sprinklings of other tribes ; if we consider the com- 
plications of constitution that have arisen from the union 
of these, not in any uniform manner, but with utter irreg- 
ularity; and if we recollect that the incongruities thus 
produced pervade the whole nature, mental and bodily — 
nervous tissue and other tissues ; we shall see that there 
must exist in all of us an imperfect correspondence be- 
tween parts of the organism that are really related ; and 
that as one manifestation of this, there must be more or 
less of discrepancy between the features and those parts 
of the nervous system with which they have a physiologi- 
cal connection. 

And if this be so, then the difficulties that stand in the 
way of the belief that beauty of character is related to 
beauty of face are considerably diminished. It becomes 
possible at once to admit that plainness may coexist with 
nobility of nature, and fine features with baseness ; and 
yet to hold that mental and facial perfection are funda- 
mentally connected, and will, when the present causes of 
incongruity have worked themselves out, be ever found 
united. 



REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 



SHAKSPEARE'S simile for adversity— 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
"Wears yet a precious jewel in his head, 

might fitly be used also as a simile for a disagreeable 
truth. Repulsive as is its aspect, the hard fact which dis- 
sipates a cherished illusion, is presently found to contain 
the germ of a more salutary belief. The experience of 
every one furnishes instances in which an opinion long 
shrunk from as seemingly at variance with all that is 
good, but finally accepted as irresistible, turns out to be 
fraught with benefits. It is thus with self-knowledge: 
much as we dislike to admit our defects, we find it better 
to know and guard against, than to ignore them. It is 
thus with changes of creed : alarming as looks the reason- 
ing by which superstitions are overthrown, the convic- 
tions to which it leads prove to be healthier ones than those 
they superseded. And it is thus with political enlighten- 
ment : men eventually see cause to thank those who pull 
to pieces their political air-castles ; hateful as their antago- 
nism once seemed. Moreover, not only is it always better 
to believe truth than error ; but the repugnant-looking 
f lets we ever found to be parts of something far more per- 



164 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

feet and beautiful than the ideal which they dispelled : 
the actuality always transcends the dream. To the many 
illustrations of this which might be cited, we shall pres- 
ently add another. 

It is a conviction almost universally entertained here 
in England, that our method of making and administering 
laws possesses every virtue. Prince Albert's unlucky say- 
ing that " Representative Government is on its trial," is 
vehemently repudiated : we consider that the trial has 
long since ended in our favour on all the counts. Partly 
from ignorance, partly from the bias of education, partly 
from that patriotism which leads the men of each nation 
to pride themselves in their own institutions, we have an 
unhesitating belief in the entire superiority of our form of 
political organization. Yet there is evidence that it has 
not a few apparently serious defects. Unfriendly critics 
can point out vices that are manifestly inherent. And if 
we may believe the defenders of despotism, these vices 
are fatal to its efficiency. 

Now instead of denying or blinking these allegati 
it would be much wiser candidly to examine them — to in- 
quire whether they are true ; and if true, what they im- 
ply. If, as most of us are so confident, government by 
representatives is better than any other, we can afford 
patiently to listen to all adverse remarks : believing that 
they are either invalid, or that if valid they do not essen- 
tially tell against its merits. And we may be sure that if 
our political system is well founded, this crucial criticism 
will serve but to bring out its worth more clearly than 
ever; and to give us better conceptions of its nature, its 
meaning, its purpose. Let us, then, banishing for the 
nonce all prepossessions, and taking up a thoroughly 
antagonistic point of view, set down without mitigation 
its many vices, flaws, and absurdities. 



COMPLEXITY OF POLITICAL MACHINERY. 165 

Is it not manifest on the face of it, that a ruling body 
made up of many individuals, who differ in character, 
education, and aims, who belong to classes having more 
or less antagonistic ideas and feelings, and who are 
severally swayed by the special opinions of the districts 
deputing them — is it not manifest that such a body must 
be a cumbrous apparatus for the management of public 
affairs? When we devise a machine to perform any 
operation, we take care that its parts are as few as possi- 
ble ; that they are adapted to their respective ends ; that 
they are properly joined with one another; and that they 
work smoothly to their common purpose. Our political 
machine, however, is constructed upon directly opposite 
principles. Its parts are extremely numerous : multiplied, 
indeed, beyond all reason. They are not severally chosen 
as specially qualified for particular functions ; but are 
mostly chosen without reference to particular functions. 
No care is taken that they shall fit well together : on the 
contrary, our arrangements are such that they are certain 
not to fit. And that, as a consequence, they do not and 
cannot act in harmony, is a fact nightly demonstrated to 
all the world. In truth, had the problem been to find an 
appliance for the slow and bungling transaction of busi- 
ness, it could scarcely have been better solved. Immense 
nindrance results from the mere multiplicity of parts ; a 
further immense hindrance results from their incongruity ; 
yet another immense hindrance results from the frequency 
with which they are changed ; while the greatest hin- 
drance of all results from the want of subordination of 
the parts to their functions — from the fact that the per- 
sonal welfare of the legislator is not bound up with the 
efficient performance of his political duty, but is often 
totally at variance with the performance of his political 
fluty. 

These are defects of a kind that do not admit of remedy, 



166 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

They are inherent in the very nature of our institutions , 
and they cannot fail to produce disastrous mismanage- 
ment. If proofs of this be needed, they may he furnished 
in abundance, both from the current history of our cen- 
tral representative government, and from that of local 
ones, public and private — from that of municipal corpora- 
tions, boards of health, boards of guardians, mechanics' 
and literary institutions, and societies of all kinds : the 
universality of the evils showing that they are not acci- 
dental but intrinsic. Let us, before going on to contem- 
plate these evils as displayed on a great scale in our legis- 
lature, glance at some of them in their simpler and smaller 
manifestations. 

We will not dwell upon the comparative inefficiency 
of deputed administration in all mercantile affairs. The 
untrustworthiness of management by proxies, might be 
afresh illustrated by the many recent joint-stock-bank 
catastrophies : the recklessness and dishonesty of rulers 
whose interests are not one with those of the concern 
they control, being in these cases conspicuously displayed. 
Or we could enlarge on the same truth as exhibited in 
the doings of railway boards : instancing the frequent 
malversations proved against directors ; the carelessness 
which has permitted Robson and Redpath frauds ; the 
rashness perseveringly shown in making unprofitable 
branches and extensions. But facts of this kind are 
sufficiently familiar. All men are convinced that for 
manufacturing and commercial ends, management by 
many partially-interested directors, is immensely inferior 
to management by a single wholly-interested owner. 

Let us pass, then, to less notorious examples. Mechan- 
ics' institutions will supply our first. The theory of these 
is plausible enough. Artisans wanting knowledge, and 
benevolent middle-class people wishing to help them to it, 
constitute the raw material. By uniting their means they 



167 

propose to obtain literary and other advantages, which 
else would be beyond their reach. And it is concluded 
that, being all interested in securing the proposed objects, 
and the governing body being chosen out of their number, 
the results cannot fail to be such as were intended. In 
most cases, however, the results are quite otherwise. In- 
difference, stupidity, party-spirit, and religious dissension, 
nearly always thwart the efforts of the promoters. It is 
thought good policy to select as president some local 
notability ; probably not distinguished for wisdom, but 
whose donation or prestige more than counter-balances 
his defect in this respect. Vice-presidents are chosen with 
the same view : a clergyman or two ; some neighbouring 
squires, if they can be had ; an ex-mayor ; several alder- 
men; half a dozen manufacturers and wealthy tradesmen; 
and a miscellaneous complement. While the committee, 
mostly elected more because of their position or popularity 
than their intelligence or fitness for cooperation, exhibit 
similar incongruities. 

Causes of dissension quickly arise. A book much 
wished for by the mass of the members, is tabooed, be- 
cause ordering it would offend the clerical party in the 
institution. Regard for the prejudices of certain magis- 
trates and squires who figure among the vice-presidents, 
forbids the engagement of an otherwise desirable and pop- 
ular lecturer, whose political and religious opinions are 
somewhat extreme. The selection of newspapers and 
magazines for the reading-room, is a fruitful source of dis- 
putes. Should some, thinking it would be a great boon to 
those for whom the institution was expressly established, 
propose to open the reading-room on Sundays, there arises 
a violent fight ; ending, perhaps, in the secession of some 
of the defeated party. 

The question of amusements, again, furnishes a bone 
of contention. Shall the institution exist solely for in- 
8 



168 REPRESENTATIVE GOYERX^TEXT. 

struction, or shall it add gratification ? The refreshment- 
question, also, is apt to be raised, and to add to the other 
causes of difference. In short, the stupidity, prejudice, 
party-spirit, and squabbling, are such as eventually to 
drive away in disgust those who should have been the 
administrators ; and to leave the control in the hands of a 
clique, who pursue some humdrum middle course, satisfy- 
ing nobody. ■ Instead of that prosperity which would 
probably have been achieved under the direction of one 
good man-of-business, whose welfare was bound up with 
its success, the institution loses its prestige, and dwindles 
away : ceases almost entirely to be what was intended — a 
mechanics' institution ; and becomes little more than a 
middle-class lounge, kept up not so much by the perma- 
nent adhesion of its members, as by the continual addition 
of new ones in place of the old ones constantly fulling off. 
Meanwhile, the end originally proposed is fulfilled, so far 
as it gets fulfilled at all, by private enterprise. Cheap 
newspapers and cheap periodicals, provided by publishers 
having in view the pockets and tastes of the Avorking- 
classes; coffee-shops and penny reading-rooms, set up by 
men whose aim is profit ; are the instruments of the chief 
proportion of such culture as is going on. 

In higher-class institutions of the same order — in Athe- 
naeums, Philosophical Societies, etc. — the like inefficiency 
of representative government is very generally displayed. 
Quickly following the vigour of early enthusiasm, come 
class and sectarian differences, the final supremacy of a 
party, bad management, apathy. Subscribers complain 
they cannot get what they want ; and one by one desert 
to private book-clubs or to Mudie. 

Turning from non-political to political institutions, we 
might, had we space, draw many illustrations from the 
doings of the old poor-law authorities, or those of modern 
boards of guardians ; but omitting these and others such, 



WORKING OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 169 

we will, among local governments, confine ourselves to 
the reformed municipal corporations. 

If, leaving out of sight all other evidences, and for- 
getting that they are newly-organized bodies into which 
corruption has scarcely had time to creep, we were to 
judge of these municipal corporations by the town-im- 
provements they have effected, we might pronounce them 
successful. But, even without insisting on the fact that 
such improvements are more due to the removal of obstruc- 
tions, and to that same progressive spirit which has estab- 
lished railways and telegraphs, than to the positive virtues 
of the civic governments ; it is to be remarked, that the exe- 
cution of numerous public works is by no means an ade- 
quate test. With power of raising funds limited only by a 
rebellion of ratepayers, it is easy in prosperous, increasing 
towns, to make a display of efficiency. The proper ques- 
tions to be asked are: — Do municipal elections end in 
the choice of the fittest men that are to be found ? Does 
the resulting administrative body, perform well and 
economically the work that devolves on it ? And does it 
show sound judgment in refraining from needless or im- 
proper work? To these questions the answers are by no 
means satisfactory. 

Town-councils are not conspicuous for either intelli- 
gence or high character. On the contrary, they consist 
of a very large proportion of ciphers, interspersed with a 
few superior men. Indeed, there are competent judges 
who think that, on the average, their members are inferior 
to those of the old close corporations they superseded. 
As all the world knows, the choice turns mainly on politi- 
cal opinions. The first question respecting any candidate 
is, not whether he has great knowledge, judgment, or 
business-faculty — not whether he has any special aptitude 
for the duty to be discharged ; but whether he is Whig or 
Tory. Even supposing his politics to be approved, his 



170 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

nomination still does not depend chiefly on his proved 
uprightness or capacity ; but much more on his friendly 
relations with the dominant clique. A number of the 
corporation magnates, habitually meeting probably at the 
chief hotel, and there held together as much by the broth- 
erhood of conviviality as by that of opinion, discuss the 
merits of all whose names are before the public, and 
decide which are the most suitable. This gin-and-water 
caucus it is, which practically determines the selection of 
candidates ; and, by consequence, the elections. Those 
who will succumb to leadership — those who will merge 
their private opinions in the policy of their party, of 
course have the preference. Men too independent for this 
— too far-seeing to join in the shibboleth of the hour, 
or too refined to mix with the "jolly good fellows" who 
thus rule the town, are shelved; notwithstanding that 
they are, above all others, fitted for office. Partly from 
this underhand influence, and partly from the consequent 
disgust which leads them to decline standing if asked, the 
best men are generally not in the governing body. It is 
notorious that in London, the most respectable merchants 
will have nothing to do with the local government. And 
in New York, "the exertions of its better citizens are still 
exhausted in private accumulation, while the duties of 
administration are left to other hands." It cannot then 
be asserted that in town-government, the representative 
system succeeds in bringing the ablest and most honour- 
able men to the top. 

The efficient and economical discharge of duties is. of 
course, hindered by this inferiority of the deputies chosen : 
ami it is yet further hindered by the persistent action of 
party and personal motives. Xot whether he knows well 
how to handle a level, but whether he voted for the popu- 
lar candidate at the last parliamentary election, is the 
question on which may, and sometimes docs, hang the 



HOW THE CHOICE OF MEN IS DETERMINED. 171 

choice of a town-surveyor ; and if sewers are ill laid out, 
it is a natural consequence. When, a new public edifice 
having been decided on, competition designs are adver- 
tised for ; and when the designs, ostensibly anonymous 
but really identifiable, have been sent in ; T. Square, Esq., 
who has an influential relative in the corporation, makes 
sure of succeeding, and is not disappointed: albeit his 
plans are not those which would have been chosen by any 
one of the judges, had the intended edifice been his own. 
Brown, who has for many years been on the town-council, 
and is one of the dominant clique, has a son who is a doc- 
tor ; and when, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament, an 
officer of health is to be appointed, Brown privately can- 
vasses his fellow-councillors, and succeeds in persuading 
them to elect his son ; though his son is by no means the 
fittest man the place can furnish. Similarly with the choice 
of tradesmen to execute work for the town. A public 
clock that is frequently getting out of order, and Board- 
of-Health water-closets which disgust those who have 
them (we state facts), sufficiently testify that stupidity, 
favouritism, or some sinister influence, is ever causing mis- 
management. The choice of inferior representatives, and 
by them of inferior employes, joined with private interest 
and divided responsibility, inevitably prevent the dis- 
charge of duties from being satisfactory. 

Moreover, the extravagance which is now becoming a 
notorious vice of municipal bodies, is greatly increased by 
the practice of undertaking things which they ought not 
to undertake ; and the incentive to do this is, in many 
cases, traceable to the representative origin of the body. 
The system of compounding with landlords for municipal 
rates, leads the lower class of occupiers into the error that 
town-burdens do not fall on them ; and they therefore 
approve of an expenditure which seemingly gives them 
gratis advantages. As they form the mass of the consti' 



L72 EEPKESEXTATTYE GOVERNMENT. 

tuency, lavishness becomes a popular policy ; and popa 
larity-hunters vie with each other in bringing forward 
new and expensive projects. Here is a councillor who, 
having fears about his next election, proposes an exten- 
sive scheme for public gardens — a scheme which many 
who disapprove do not oppose, because they, too, bear in 
mind the next election. There is another councillor, who 
keeps a shop, and who raises and agitates the question of 
baths and wash-houses; very well knowing that his trade 
is not likely to suffer from such a course. And so in 
other cases : the small direct interest which each member 
of the corporation has in economical administration, is 
antagonized by so many indirect interests of other kinds, 
that he is not likely to be a good guardian of the public 
purse. 

Thus, neither in respect of the deputies chosen, the 
efficient performance of their work, nor the avoidance of 
unfit work, can the governments of our towns be held 
satisfactory. And if in these recently-formed bodies the 
defects are so conspicuous, still more conspicuous are they 
where they have had time to grow to their full magnitude : 
witness the case of Xew York. According to the T 
correspondent in that city, the Xew York people p:iy 
"over a million and a half sterling, for which they have 
badly-paved streets, a police by no means as eiheient as it 
should be, though much better than formerly, the greatest 
amount of dirt north of Italy, the poorest cab-system of 
any metropolis in the world, and only unsheltered wooden 
piers for the discharge of merchandise. n 

And now, having glanced at the general bearings of 

the question in these minor cases, let us take the major 
case of our central government ; and in connection with it, 
oursue the inquiry more closely. Here the inherent faults 
of the representative system are still more clearly dis- 



THE BEST MEN NOT SELECTED. 173 

played. The greater multiplicity of rulers involves 
greater cumbrousness, greater confusion and delay. Dif- 
ferences of class, of aims, of prejudices, are both larger in 
number and wider in degree ; and hence arise dissensions 
still more multiplied. The direct effect which each legis- 
lator is likely to experience from the working of any par- 
ticular measure, is usually very small and remote ; while 
the indirect influences that sway him, are, in this above 
all other cases, numerous and strong ; whence follows a 
marked tendency to neglect public welfare for private 
advantage. But let us set out from the beginning — with 
the constituencies. 

The representative theory assumes that if a number of 
citizens, deeply interested as they all are in good govern- 
ment, be endowed with political power, they will choose 
the wisest and best men for governors. Seeing how 
greatly they must suffer from bad administration of pub- 
lic affairs and benefit from good, it is considered self-evi- 
dent that they must have the will to select proper repre- 
sentatives; and it is further taken for granted that 
average common sense gives the ability to select proper 
representatives. How does experience bear out these 
assumptions ? Does it not to a great degree negative 
them? 

We find several considerable classes of electors who 
have little or no will in the matter. Not a few of those 
on the register pique themselves on taking no part in poli- 
tics — claim credit for having the sense not to meddle with 
things that do not concern them. Many others there are 
whose interests in the choice of a member of Parliament 
are so slight, that they do not think it worth while to 
vote. A notable proportion, too, shopkeepers especially, 
care so little about the result, that their votes are deter- 
mined by their wishes to please their chief patrons. In 
the minds of a yet larger class, small sums of money, or 



174 BEPBESESx'ATIVE GOVEEXMEXT. 

even ad libitum supplies of beer, outweigh any desirts 
they have to use their political powers independently. 
Those who adequately recognize the importance of hon- 
estly exercising their judgments in the selection of legis- 
lators, and who give conscientious votes, form but a mi- 
nority ; and the election usually hangs less upon their wills 
than upon the indirect and illegitimate influences which 
sway the rest. 

Then, again, as to intelligence. Even supposing that 
the mass of electors have a sufficiently decided will to choose 
the best rulers, what evidence have we of their ability? 
Is picking out the wisest man among them, a task within 
the range of their capacities ? Let any one listen to the 
conversation of a farmer's market-table, and then answer 
how much he finds of that wisdom which is required to 
discern wisdom in others. Or let him read the clap-trap 
speeches made from the hustings with a view of pleasing 
constituents, and then estimate the penetration of those 
who are to be so pleased. Even among the higher order 
of electors he will meet with gross political ignorance — 
with notions that Acts of Parliament can do whatever it 
is thought well they should do ; that the value of gold 
can be fixed by law ; that distress can be remedied by 
poor-laws ; and so forth. If he descends a step, he will 
find in the still-prevalent ideas that machinery is injurious 
to the working-classes, and that extravagance is " good 
for trade," indices of a yet smaller insight. And in the 
lower and larger class, formed by those who think that 
their personal interest in good government is not worth 
the trouble of voting, or is outbalanced by the loss of a 
customer, or is of less value than a bribe, he will perceive 
an almost hopeless stupidity. "Without going the length 
of Mr. Carlyle, and defining the people as "twenty-seven 
millions, mostly fools," he will yet confess that they are 
but very sparely gifted with wisdom. 



INCAPACITY OF SELECTION. 175 

That these should succeed in choosing from out their 
number the fittest governors, would be strange ; and that 
they do not so succeed is manifest. Even as judged by 
the most common-sense tests, their selections are absurd, 
as we shall shortly see. 

It is a self-evident truth that we may most safely trust 
those whose interests are identical with our own; and 
that it is very dangerous to trust those whose interests 
are antagonistic to our own. All the legal securities we 
take in our transactions with each other, are so many 
recognitions of this truth. We are not satisfied with pro- 
fessions. If another's position is such that he must be 
liable to motives at variance with the promises he makes, 
we take care by introducing an artificial motive (the dread 
of legal penalties) to make it his interest to fulfil these 
promises. Down to the asking for a receipt, our daily 
business-habits testify that, in consequence of the prevail- 
ing selfishness, it is extremely imprudent to . expect men 
to regard the claims of others equally with their own ; — 
all asseverations of good faith notwithstanding. Now, it 
might have been thought that even the modicum of sense 
possessed by the majority of electors, would have led them 
to recognize this fact in the choice of their representatives. 
But they show a total disregard of it. 

While the theory of our Constitution, in conformity 
with this same fact, assumes that the three divisions com- 
posing the Legislature will severally pursue each its own 
ends — while our history shows that Monarch, Lords, and 
Commons, have all along more or less conspicuously done 
this ; our electors manifest by their votes, the belief that 
their interests will be as well cared for by members of the 
titled class as by members of their own class. Though, 
in their determined opposition to the Reform-Bill, the 
aristocracy showed how greedy they were, not only of 
their legitimate power, but of then* illegitimate power — ■ 



176 REPRESENTATIVE GOVEEJOIEIyT. 

though by the enactment and pertinacious maintenance 
of the Corn-Laws, they proved how little popular welfare 
weighed in the scale against their own profit — though 
they have ever displayed a watchful jealousy even of their 
smallest privileges, whether equitable or inequitable (as 
witness the recent complaint in the House of Lords, that 
the Mercantile Marine Act calls on lords of manors to 
Bhow their titles before they can claim the wrecks thrown 
on the shores of their estates, which before they had 
always done by prescription) — though they have habit- 
ually pursued that self-seeking policy which men so 
placed were sure to pursue; yet constituencies hare 
decided that members of the aristocracy may fitly be 
chosen as representatives of the people. Our present 
House of Commons contains 98 Irish peers and sons of 
English peers; 66 blood-relations of peers; and 67 con- 
nections of peers by marriage: in all, 231 members whose 
interests or sympathies, or both, are with the nobility 
rather than the commonalty. 

We are quite prepared to hear the doctrine implied in 
this criticism, condcmcd by rose-water politicians as nar- 
row and prejudiced. To such we simply reply, that they 
and their friends fully recognize this doctrine when it 
suits them to do so. )Vhat is the meaning of their wish 
to prevent the town-constituencies from predominating 
over the county-ones ; if it does not imply the belief that 
each division of the community will consult its own wel- 
fare ? Or what plea can there be for Lord John Russell's 
proposal to represent minorities ; unless it be the plea that 
those who have the opportunity will sacrifice the interests 
of others to their own ? Or how shall we explain the 
anxiety of the upper class to keep a tight rein on the 
growing power of the lower class, save from their con- 
sciousness that bond fide representatives of the lower class 
would be less regardful of their privileges than they are 



CLASSES ATTEND TO THEIR OWN INTERESTS. 177 

themselves ? The truth is plain enough, even for a child 
to comprehend. If there be any reason in the theory of 
the Constitution, then, while the members of the House 
of Peers should belong to the peerage, the members of the 
House of Commons should belong to the commonalty. 
Either the constitutional theory is sheer nonsense, or else 
the choice of lords as representatives of the people proves 
the folly of constituencies. 

But this folly by no means ends here : it works out 
other results quite as absurd. What should we think of a 
man giving his servants equal authority with himself over 
the affairs of his household ? Suppose the shareholders 
in a railway company were to elect, as members of their 
board of directors, the secretary, engineer, superintend- 
ent, traffic-manager, and others such ? Should we not be 
astonished at their stupidity ? Should we not prophesy 
that the private advantage of officials would frequently 
override the welfare of the company ? Yet our parlia- 
mentary electors commit a blunder of just the same kind. 
For what are military and naval officers but servants of 
the nation ; standing to it in a relation like that in which 
the officers of a railway-company stand to the company ? 
Do they not perform public work ? do they not take pub- 
lic pay ? And do not their interests differ from those of 
the public, as the interests of the employed from those of 
the employer ? The impropriety of admitting executive 
agents of the State into the Legislature, has over and 
over again thrust itself into notice ; and in minor cases 
has been prevented by sundry Acts of Parliament. Enu- 
merating those disqualified for the House of Commons, 
Blackstone says : 

" No person concerned in the management of any duties of 
taxes created since 1692, except the commissioners of the treasury, 
nor any of the officers following (viz., commissioners of prizes, 
transports, sick and wounded, wine licenses, navy, and victualling ; 



178 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

secretaries and receivers of prizes ; comptrollers of the army ao« 
counts ; agents of regiments ; governors of plantations, and their 
deputies ; officers of Minorca or Gibraltar ; officers of the excise 
and customs ; clerks and deputies in the several offices of the 
treasury, exchequer, navy, victualling, admiralty, pay of the army 
and navy, secretaries of state, salt, stamps, appeals, wine, licenses, 
hackney coaches, hawkers and pedlars), nor any persons that hold 
any new office under the crown created since 1703, are capable of 
being elected, or sitting as members." 

In which list naval and military officers would doubtless 
have been included, had they not always been too power- 
ful a body and too closely identified with the dominant 
classes. Glaring, however, as is the impolicy of appoint- 
ing public servants to make the laws; and clearly as this 
impolicy is recognized in the above-specified exclusions 
from time to time enacted ; the people at large seem to- 
tally oblivious of it. At the last election they returned 9 
naval officers, 46 military officers, and 51 retired military 
officers, who in virtue of education, friendship, and t 
de corps, take the same views with their active comrades 
— in all 106 : not including 64 officers of militia and yeo- 
manry, whose sympathies and ambitions are in a consider- 
able degree the same. If any one thinks that this I 
infusion of officialism is of no consequence, let him look 
in the division-lists. Let him inquire how much it has had 
to do with the maintenance of the purchase-system. Let 
him ask whether the almost insuperable obstacles to the 
promotion of the private soldier, have not been strength- 
ened by it. Let him see what share it had in keeping up 
those worn-out practices, and forms, and mis-arrange* 
ments, which entailed the disasters of our late war. Let 
jim consider whether the hushing-up of the Crimean In- 
quiry, and the whitewashing of delinquents, were not 
nided by it. Yet, though abundant experience thus con- 
firms what common sense would beforehand have prophe* 



LAWTEES AS LEGISLATORS. 179 

siel ; and though, notwithstanding the late disasters, ex- 
posures, and public outcry for army-reform, the influence 
of the military caste is so great, that the reform has been 
staved off; our constituencies are stupid enough to send 
to Parliament as many military officers as ever ! 

ISTot even now have we reached the end of these im- 
politic selections. The general principle on which we 
have been insisting, and which is recognized by expound- 
ers of the constitution when they teach that the legislative 
and executive divisions of the Government should be dis- 
tinct — this general principle is yet further sinned against ; 
though not in so literal a manner. For though they do 
not take State-pay, and are not nominally Government- 
officers, yet, practically, lawyers are members of the exec- 
utive organization. They form an important part of the 
apparatus for the administration of justice. By the work- 
ing of this apparatus they make their profits ; and their 
welfare depends on its being so worked as to bring them 
profits, rather than on its being so worked as to adminis- 
ter justice. Exactly as military officers have interests dis- 
tinct from, and often antagonistic to, the efficiency of the 
army; so, barristers and solicitors have interests distinct 
from, and often antagonistic to, the simple, cheap, and 
prompt enforcement of the law. 

And that they are habitually swayed by these antago- 
nistic interests, is notorious. It is not in human nature 
that they should be otherwise. So strong is the bias, as 
sometimes even to destroy the power of seeing from any 
other than the professional stand-point. We have our- 
selves heard a lawyer declaiming on the damage which 
the County-Courts-Act had done to the profession ; and 
expecting his non-professional hearers to join him in con- 
demning it therefor ! And if, as all the world knows, 
the legal conscience is not of the tenderest, is it wise to 
lepute lawyers to frame the laws which they will be con- 



L80 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

cerned in carrying out ; and the carrying out of which 
must affect their private incomes ? Are barristers, who 
constantly take fees for work which they do not perform, 
and attorneys, whose bills are so often exorbitant that a 
special office has been established for taxing them — are 
these, of all others, to be trusted in a position which would 
be trying even to the most disinterested ? Nevertheless. 
the towns and counties of England have returned to the 
present House of Commons 98 lawyers — some 60 of them 
in actual practice, and the rest retired, but doubtless re- 
taining those class-views acquired daring their professional 
careers. 

These criticisms on the conduct of constituencies, do 
not necessarily commit us to the assertion that none be- 
longing to the official and aristocratic classes ought to be 
chosen. Though it would be safer to carry out in these 
important cases, the general principle which, as above 
shown, Parliament lias itself recognized and enforced in 
unimportant cases ; yet we are not prepared to say that 
occasional exceptions might not be made, on good cause 
being shown. All we aim to show is, the gross impolicy 
of selecting so large a proportion of representatives from 
classes having interests different from those of the general 
public. That in addition to more than a third taken from 
the dominant class, who already occupy one division of the 
Legislature, the House of Commons should. contain nearly 
another third taken from the naval, military, and legal 
classes, whose policy, like that of the dominant class, is to 
maintain things as they are ; we consider a decisive proof 
of electoral misjudgment. That out of Qoi members, of 
which the People's House now consists, there should be 
but 250 who, as considered from a class-point of view, are 
eligible or tolerably eligible (for we include a considerable 
number who are more or less objectionable), is, significant 
af any thing but popular good sense. That into an as- 



THE IGNORANT CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE WISE. 181 

seinbly established to protect their interests, the common- 
alty of England should have sent one-third whose interests 
are the same as their own, and two-thirds whose interests 
are at variance with their own, proves a scarcely credible 
lack of wisdom ; and seems an awkward fact for the repre- 
sentative theory. 

If the intelligence of the mass is thus not sufficient 
even to choose out men who by position and occupation 
are fit representatives, still less is it sufficient to choose 
out men who are the fittest in character and capacity. To 
see who will be liable to the bias of private advantage is 
a very easy thing ; to see who is wisest is a very difficult 
thing ; and those who do not succeed in the first must 
necessarily fail in the last. The higher the wisdom, the 
more incomprehensible does it become by ignorance. It 
is a manifest fact that the popular man or writer, is always 
one who is but little in advance of the mass, and conse- 
quently understandable by them : never the man who is 
far in advance of them, and out of their sight. Apprecia* 
tion of another implies some community of thought. 
i: Only the man of worth can recognize worth in men. 
. . . The worthiest, if he appealed to universal suffrage, 

would have but a poor chance Alas ! Jesus 

Christ, asking the Jews what he deserved — was not the 
answer, Death on the gallows !" And though men do not 
now-a-days stone the prophet, they, at any rate, ignore 
him. As Mr. Carlyle says in his vehement way — 

"If of ten men nine are recognizable as fools, which is a com- 
mon calculation, how, in the name of wonder, will you ever get a 
ballot-box to grind you out a wisdom from the votes of these ten 
men ? I tell you a million blockheads looking authorita- 
tively into one man of what you call genius, or noble sense, will 
make nothing but nonsense out of him and his qualities, and his 
virtues and defects, if they look till the end of time." 

So that, even were electors content to choose the man 



182 EEPEESENTATIVE GOVEEXMEXT. 

proved by general evidence to be the most far-seeing, and 
refrained from testing him by the coincidence of his views 
with their own, there would be small chance of their hit- 
ting on the best. But judging of him, as they do, by 
asking him whether he thinks this or that crudity which 
they think, it is manifest that they will fix on one far re- 
moved from the best. Their deputy will be truly repre- 
sentative ; — representative, that is, of the average stupid- 
ity. 

And now let us look at the assembly of representatives 
thus chosen. Already we have noted the unfit composi- 
tion of this assembly as respects the interests of its mem- 
bers ; and we have just seen what the representative theory 
itself implies as to their intelligence. Let us now, how 
ever, consider them more nearly under this last head. 

And first, what is the work they undertake ? Ob- 
serve, we do not say, the work which they ought to do ; 
but the work which ikey propose to do, and try to do- 
This comprehends the regulation of nearly all actions 
going on throughout society. Besides devising measures 
to prevent the aggression of citizens on each other, and to 
secure each the quiet possession of his own ; and besides 
assuming the further function, also needful in the present 
state of mankind, of defending the nation as a whole 
against invaders ; they unhesitatingly take on themselves 
to provide for countless wants, to cure countless ills, to 
oversee countless affairs. Out of the many beliefs men 
have held respecting God, Creation, the Future, etc., they 
presume to decide which are true ; and endow an army of 
priests to perpetually repeat them to the people. The 
distress inevitably resulting from improvidence, and the 
greater or less pressure of population on produce, they 
undertake to remove : they settle the minimum Avhich 
each rate-payer shall give in charity ; and how the pro- 



THINGS PEOPOSED TO BE DONE. 183 

ceeds shall be administered. Judging that emigration 
will not naturally go on fast enough, they provide means 
for carrying off some of the labouring classes to the colo- 
nies. Certain that social necessities will not cause a suffi- 
ciently rapid spread of knowledge, and confident that 
they know what knowledge is most required, they use 
public money for the building of schools and paying of 
teachers ; they print and publish State-school-books ; they 
employ inspectors to see that their standard of education 
is conformed to. Playing the part of doctor, they insist 
that every one shall use their specific, and escape the dan- 
ger of small-pox by submitting to an attack of cow-pox. 
Playing the part of moralist, they decide which dramas 
are fit to be acted, and which are not. Playing the part 
of artist, they prompt the setting up of drawing-schools ; 
provide masters and models ; and, at Marlborough House, 
enact what shall be considered good taste, and what bad. 
Through their lieutenants, the corporations of towns, they 
furnish appliances for the washing of people's skins and 
clothes ; they, in some cases, manufacture gas and put 
down water-pipes ; they lay out sewers and cover over 
cess-pools ; they establish public libraries and make pub- 
lic gardens. Moreover, they determine how houses shall 
be built, and what is a safe construction for a ship ; they 
take measures for the security of railway travelling ; they 
fix the hour after which public-houses may not be open ; 
they regulate the prices chargeable by vehicles plying in 
the London streets ; they inspect lodging-houses ; they 
arrange for town burial-grounds ; they fix the hours of 
factory hands. In short, they aim to control and direct 
the entire national life. If some social process does not 
seem to them to be going on fast enough, they stimulate 
it ; where the growth is not in the mode or the direction 
which they think most desirable, they alter it ; and so 
they seek to realize some undefined ideal community. 



L84 REPRESENTATIVE GOVEEXMEST. 

Such being the task undertaken, what, let us ask, are 
the qualifications for discharging it ? Supposing it possi- 
ble to achieve all this (which we do not), what must be 
the knowledge and capacities of those who shall achieve 
it ? Successfully to prescribe for society, it is needful to 
know the structure of society — the principles on which it 
is organized — the natural laws underlying its progress. 
If there be not a true understanding of what constitutes 
social development, there must necessarily be grave mis- 
takes made in checking these changes and fostering those. 
If there be lack of insight respecting the mutual depend- 
ence of the many functions which, taken together, make 
up the national life, unforeseen disasters will ensue from 
not perceiving how an interference with one will affect 
the rest. If there be no knowledge of the natural con- 
sensus at any time subsisting in the social organism, there 
will of course be bootless attempts to secure ends which 
do not consist with its passing phase of organization- 
Clearly, before any effort to regulate the myriad multi- 
form changes going on in a community, can be rationally 
made, there must be an adequate comprehension of how 
these changes are caused, and in what way they are re- 
lated to each other — how this entangled web of phenom- 
ena hangs together — how it came thus, and what it is 
becoming. That is to say, there must be a due acquaint- 
ance with the social science — the science involving all 
others ; the science standing above all others in pubtlety 
and complexity ; the science which the highest intelligence 
alone can master. 

And now, how far do our legislators possess this quali- 
fication ? Do they in any moderate degree display it ? 
Do they make even a distant approximation to it ? That 
many of them are very good classical scholars is beyond 
doubt : not a few have written first-rate Latin verses, and 
can enjoy a Greek play; but there is no obvious relation 



QUALIFICATIONS OF LEGISLATOES. 185 

between a memory well stocked with the words talked 
two thousand years ago, and an understanding disciplined 
to deal with modern society. That in learning the lan- 
guages of the past they have learnt some of its history, is 
true ; but considering that this history is mainly a narra- 
tive of battles and intrigues and negotiations, it does not 
throw much light on social philosophy — not even the sim- 
plest principles of political economy have ever been gath- 
ered from it. We do not question, either, that a moder- 
ate percentage of members of Parliament are fair mathe- 
maticians ; and that mathematical discipline is valuable. 
As, however, political problems are not susceptible of 
mathematical analysis, their studies in this direction can- 
not much aid them in legislation. 

To the large body of military officers who sit as repre* 
sentatives, we would not for a moment deny a competent 
knowledge of fortification, of strategy, of regimental dis- 
cipline ; but we do not see that these throw much light 
on the causes and cure of national evils. Indeed, consid- 
ering that all war is anti-social, and that the government 
of soldiers is necessarily despotic ; military education and 
habits are more likely to unfit than to fit men for regulat- 
ing the doings of a free people. Extensive acquaintance 
with the laws, may doubtless be claimed by the many bar- 
risters and solicitors chosen by our constituencies ; and 
this seems a kind of information having some relation to 
the work to be done. Unless, however, this information 
is more than technical — unless it is accompanied by a 
knowledge of the ramified consequences that laws have 
produced in times past, and are producing now (which 
nobody will assert) ; it cannot give much insight into So 
cial Science. A familiarity with laws is no more a prepa 
ration for rational legis^tion, than would a familiarity 
with all the nostrums men have ever used, be a prepara 
tion for the rational practice of medicine. Nowhere, then, 



L86 EEPEESEXTATIVE GOYEKXMEXT. 

in our representative body, do we find appropriate culture, 
Here is a clever novelist, and there a successful maker of 
railways ; this member has acquired a large fortune in 
trade, and that member is noted as an agricultural im- 
prover ; but none of these achievements imply fitness for 
controlling and adjusting social processes. Among the 
many who have passed through the public school and uni- 
versity curriculum — including though they may a few 
Oxford double-firsts and one or two Cambridge wranglers 
—there are none who have received the discipline required 
by the true legislator. Xone have that competent knowl- 
edge of Science in general, culminating in the Science of 
Life, which can alone form a basis for the Science of So- 
ciety. 

For it is one of those open secrets which seem the 
more secret because they are so open, that all phenomena 
displayed by a nation are phenomena of Life, and are 
without exception dependent on the laws of Life. There 
is no growth, decay, evil, improvement, or change of any 
kind, going on in the body politic, but what has its origi- 
nal cause in the actions of human beings ; and there are 
no actions of human beings but what conform to the laws 
of Life in general, and cannot be truly understood until 
those laws are understood. We do not hesitate to assert 
that without a knowledge of the laws of Life, and a clear 
comprehension of the way in which they underlie and 
determine social growth and organization, the attempted 
regulation of social life must end in perpetual failures. 

See, then, the immense incongruity between the end 
and the means. See on the one hand the countless diffi- 
culties of the gigantic task ; and on the other hand the 
almost total anpreparedness of those who undertake it. 
Need we wonder that legislation is ever breaking down '? 
Is it not natural that complaint, amendment, and repeal, 
should form the staple business of every session ? Is there 



LACK OF POLITICAL EDUCATION. 187 

any tiling more than might be expected in the absurd 
Jack-Cadeisms which almost nightly disgrace the debates ? 
Even without setting up so high a standard of qualifica- 
tion as that above specified, the unfitness of most repre- 
sentatives for their duties is abundantly manifest. You 
need but glance over the miscellaneous list of noblemen, 
baronets, squires, merchants, barristers, engineers, soldiers, 
sailors, railway-directors, etc., and then ask what training 
their previous lives have given them for the intricate busi- 
ness of legislation, to see at once how extreme must be 
the incompetence. One would think that the whole sys- 
tem had been framed on the sayings of some political 
Dogberry : — " The art of healing is difficult ; the art of 
government easy. The understanding of arithmetic comes 
by study; while the understanding of society comes by 
instinct. Watchmaking requires a long apprenticeship ; 
but there needs none for the making of institutions. To 
manage a shop properly requires teaching ; but the man- 
agement of a people may be undertaken without prepara- 
tion." Were we to be visited by some wiser Gulliver, or, 
as in the " Micromegas" of Voltaire, by some inhabitant 
of another sphere, his account of our political institutions 
might run somewhat as follows : 

( " I found that the English were governed by an assem- 
bly of men, said to embody the ' collective wisdom.' This 
assembly, joined with some other authorities which seem 
practically subordinate to it, has unlimited power. I was 
much perplexed by this. With us it is customary to 
define the office of any appointed body ; and above all 
things to see that it does not defeat the ends for which it 
was appointed. But both the theory and the practice of 
this English Government, imply that it may do whatevei 
it pleases. Though, by their current maxims and usages, 
the English recognize the right of property as sacred— 
though the infraction of it is considered by them one ol 



188 EEPEESENTATTVE GOVEEXMEXT. 

the gravest crimes — tliougli tlie laws profess to "be so jeai 
ous of it as to punish even the stealing of a turnip ; yet 
their legislators suspend it at will. They take the money 
of citizens for any project which they choose to under- 
take ; though such project was not in the least contem- 
plated by those who gave them authority — nay, though 
the greater part of the citizens from whom the money is 
taken had no share in giving them such authority. Each 
citizen can hold property only so long as the 654 deputies 
do not want it. It seemed to me that an exploded doc 
trine once current among them of ' the divine right of 
kings,' had simply been changed into the divine right of 
Parliaments. 

" I was at first inclined to think that the constitution 
of things on the Earth was totally different from what it 
is with us ; for the current political philosophy here, im- 
plies that acts are not right or wrong in themselves, but 
become one or the other by the votes of law-makers. In 
our world it is considered manifest that if a number of 
beings live together, there must, in virtue of their natures, 
be certain primary conditions on which only they can 
work satisfactorily in concert ; and that the conduct which 
breaks through these conditions is bad. In the English 
legislature, however, a proposal to regulate conduct by 
any such abstract standard would be held absurd. I 
asked one of their members of Parliament whether a ma- 
jority of the House could legitimize murder. He said, 
No. I asked him whether it could sanctify robbery. He 
thought not. But I could not make him see that if mur- 
der and robbery are intrinsically wrong, and not to be 
made right by decisions of statesmen, that similarly aM 
actions mnst be either right or wrong, apart from the au- 
thority of the law ; aud that, if the right and wrong of 
the law are not in harmony with this intrinsic right and 
wrong, the law itself is criminal. Some, indeed, among 



SUPPOSED OMNIPOTENCE OF YOTES. 189 

the English think as we do. One of their remarkable 
men (not included in their Assembly of Notables) writes 
thus : 

" ' To ascertain better and better what the will of the Eternal 
was and is with us, what the laws of the Eternal are, all Parlia- 
ments, Ecumenic Councils, Congresses, and other Collective Wis- 
doms, have had this for their object Nevertheless, in the 

inexplicable universal votings and debatings of these Ages, an idea 
or rather a dumb presumption to the contrary has gone idly 
abroad ; and at this day, over extensive tracts of the world, poor 
human beings are to be found, whose practical belief it is that if 

we " vote " this or that, so this or that will thenceforth ~be 

Practically, men have come to imagine that the Laws of this Uni- 
verse, like the laws of constitutional countries, are decided by 
voting. ... It is an idle fancy. The Laws of this Universe, of 
which if the Laws of England are not *an exact transcript, they 
should passionately study to become such, are fixed by the ever- 
lasting congruity of things, and are not fixable or changeable by 
" voting ! " ' 

" But I find that, contemptuously disregarding all such 
protests, the English legislators persevere in their hyper- 
atheistic notion, that an Act of Parliament duly enforced 
by State-officers, will work out any object : no question be- 
ing put whether Laws of Nature permit. I forgot to ask 
whether they considered that different kinds of food could 
be made wholesome or unwholesome by State-decree. 

"One thing that struck me, was the curious way in 
which the members of their House of Commons judge of 
each others' capacities. Many who expressed opinions of 
the crudest kind, or trivial platitudes, or worn-out super- 
stitions, were very civilly treated. Follies as great as 
that but a few years since uttered by one of their minis- 
ters, who said that free trade was contrary to common 
sense, were received in silence. But I was present when 
one of their number, who as I thought was speaking very 



190 REPEESEXTATIYE GOVEEX^TEXT. 

rationally, made a mistake in his pronunciation — made 
what they call a wrong quantity ; and immediately there 
arose a shout of derision. It seemed quite tolerable that 
a member should know little or nothing about the busi- 
ness he was there to transact ; but quite intolerable that 
he should be ignorant on a point of no moment. 

" The English pique themselves on being especially 
practical — have a great contempt for theorizers, and pro- 
fess to be guided exclusively by facts. Before making or 
altering a law, it is the custom to appoint a committee of 
inquiry, who send for men able to give information con- 
cerning the matter in hand, and ask them some thousands 
of questions. These questions, and the answers given to 
them, are printed in large books, and distributed among 
the members of the Houses of Parliament ; and I was 
told that they spent about £100,000 a year in thus collect- 
ing and distributing evidence. Nevertheless, it appeared 
to me that the ministers and representatives of the Eng- 
lish people, pertinaciously adhere to theories long ago dis- 
proved by the most conspicuous facts. They pay great 
respect to petty details of evidence, but of large truths 
they are quite regardless. Thus, the experience of age 
after age, has shown that their state-management is almost 
invariably bad. The national estates are so miserably ad- 
ministered as often to bring loss instead of gain. The 
government ship-yards are uniformly extravagant and 
inefficient. The judicial system works so ill, that most 
citizens will submit to serious losses rather than run risks 
of being ruined by law-suits. Countless facts prove the 
Government to be the- worst owner, the worst manufac- 
turer, the worst trader : in fact, the worst manager, be 
the thing managed what it may. But though the evi- 
dence of this is abundant and conclusive — though during 
a recent war the bunglings of officials were as glaring and 
multitudinous as ever ; yet the belief that any proposed 



GOVERNMENT AS A MANUFACTURER. 191 

duties will be satisfactorily discharged by a new public 
department appointed to them, seems not a whit the 
weaker. Legislators, thinking themselves practical, cling 
to the plausible theory of an officially-regulated society, 
spite of overwhelming evidence that official regulation 
perpetually fails. 

" Nay, indeed, the belief seems to gain strength among 
these fact-loving English statesmen ; notwithstanding the 
facts are against it. Proposals for State-control over this 
and the other, have been of late more rife than ever. 
And, most remarkable of all, their representative assembly 
lately listened with grave faces to the assertion, made by 
one of their high authorities, that State-workshops are 
more economical than private workshops. Their prime 
minister, in defending a recently-established arms-factory, 
actually told them that at one of their arsenals, certain 
missiles of war were manufactured not only better than 
by the trade, but at about one-third the price ; and added, 
6 so it would be in all things? The English being a trading 
people, who must be tolerably familiar with the usual 
rates of profits among manufacturers, and the margin for 
possible economy, the fact that they should have got for 
their chief representative one so utterly in the dark on 
these matters, struck me as a wonderful result of the rep- 
resentative system. 

"I did not inquire much further, for it was manifest 
that if these were really their wisest men, the English 
were not a wise people." 

Representative government, then, cannot be called a 
success, in so far as the choice of men is concerned. Those 
it puts into power are the fittest neither in respect of their 
interests, their culture, nor their wisdom. And as a con- 
sequence, partly of this and partly of its complex and 
cumbrous nature, representative government is any thing 
9 



192 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

but efficient for administrative purposes. In these respects 
it is manifestly inferior to monarchical government. This 
has the advantage of simplicity ; which is always condu- 
cive to efficiency. And it has the further advantage that 
the power is in the hands of one who is directly concerned 
in the good management of national affairs : seeing that 
the continued maintenance of his power — nay, often his 
very life — depends on this. For his own sake a monarch 
chooses the wisest councillors he can find, regardless of 
class-distinctions. His interest in getting the Lest help, is 
too great to allow of prejudices standing between him and 
a far-seeing man. AVe see this abundantly illustrated. 
Did not the kings of France take Richelieu, and Mazarin, 
and Turgot to assist them? Had not Henry VJJLL his 
Wolsey, Elizabeth her Burleigh, James his Bacon, Crom- 
well his Milton? And where not these men of greater 
calibre than those who hold the reins under our constitu- 
tional regime? So strong is the motive of an autocrat to 
make use of ability wherever it exists, that he will take 
even his barber into council if he finds him a clever fellow. 
Besides choosing them for ministers and advisers, he seeks 
out the most competent men for other offices. Napoleon 
raised his marshals from the ranks; and owed his military 
success in great part to the readiness with which Ik- saw 
and availed himself of merit wherever found. We have 
recently seen in Russia, how prompt was the recognition 
and promotion of engineering talent in the case of Todtle- 
ben ; and know to our cost how greatly the prolonged de- 
fence of Sebastopol was due to this. 

In the marked contrast to these cases supplied by uiir 
OAvn army, in which genius is ignored while mufis are 
honoured — in which wealth and caste make the advance 
of plebeian merit next to impossible — and in which jeal- 
ousies between Queen's service and Company's service 
render the best generalship almost unavailable — we see 



WHEKE DESPOTISM IS ADVANTAGEOUS. 193 

that the representative system fails in the officering of its 
executive, as much as in the officering of its legislative. A 
striking antithesis between the actions of the two forms 
of government, is presented in the evidence given before 
the Sebastopol Committee respecting the supply of huts 
to the Crimean army — evidence showing that while, in 
his negotiations with the English Government, the con- 
tractor for the huts met with nothing but vacillation, de- 
lay, and official rudeness ; the conduct of the French Gov- 
ernment was marked by promptitude, decision, sound 
judgment, and great civility. Every thing goes to show 
that for administrative efficiency, autocratic power is 
the best. If your aim is a well-organized army — if you 
want to have sanitary departments, and educational 
departments, and charity-departments, managed in a busi- 
ness-like way — if you would have society actively regu- 
lated by staffs of State-agents ; then by all means choose 
that system of complete centralization which we call 
despotism. 

Probably, notwithstanding the hints dropped at the 
outset, most have read the foregoing pages with surprise. 
Very likely some have referred to the cover of the Hevieio, 
to see whether they have not, in mistake, taken up some 
other than the " Westminster ; " while some may, perhaps, 
have accompanied their perusal by a running commentary 
of epithets condemnatory of our seeming change of prin- 
ciples. Let them not be alarmed. We have not in the 
least swerved from the confession of faith set forth in our 
prospectus. On the contrary, as we shall shortly show, 
our adhesion to free institutions is as strong as ever — nay, 
has even gained strength through this apparently antago- 
nistic criticism. 

The subordination of a nation to a man, is not a whole- 
some but a vicious state of things : needful, indeed, for a 



194 REPRESENTATIVE GOYERXMEXT. 

vicious humanity ; but to be outgrown as fast as may be. 
The instinct which makes it possible is any thing but a 
noble one. Call it " hero-worship," and it looks respecta- 
ble. Call it what it is — a blind awe and fear of power, no 
matter of what kind, but more especially of the brutal 
kind ; and it is by no means to be admired. Watch it in 
early ages deifying the cannibal chief; singing the praises 
of the successful thief; commemorating the most blood- 
thirsty warriors ; speaking with reverence of those who 
had shown undying revenge ; and erecting altars to such 
as carried furthest the vices which disgrace humanity; 
and the illusion disappears. Read how, where it was 
strongest, it immolated crowds of victims at the tomb of 
the dead king — how, at the altars raised to its heroes, it 
habitually sacrificed prisoners and children to satisfy their 
traditional appetite for human flesh — how it produced that 
fealty of subjects to rulers which made possible endless 
aggressions, battles, massacres, and horrors innumerable — 
how it has mercilessly slain those who would not lick the 
dust before its idols ; — read all this, and the feeling no 
longer seems so worthy an one. See it in later days 
idealizing the worst as well as the best monarehs ; receiv- 
ing assassins with acclamation ; hurrahing before suc- 
cessful treachery ; rushing to applaud the procession and 
shows and ceremonies wherewith effete power strengthens 
itself; and it looks far from laudable. Autocracy pre- 
supposes inferiority of nature on the part of both ruler 
and subject : on the one side a cold, unsympathetic 
sacrificing of others' wills to self-will ; on the other 
side a mean, cowardly abandonment of the claims of 
manhood. 

Our very language bears testimony to this. Po not 
dignity, independence, and other words of approbation, 
imply a nature at variance with this relation ? Arc not 
tyrannical, arbitanj, despotic, epithets of reproach ? and 



HERO-WOESHTP UNMASKED. 195 

aie not truckling, fawning, cringing, epithets of con- 
tempt ? Is not slavish a condemnatory term ? Does not 
servile, that is, serf-like, imply littleness, meanness ? And 
has not the word villain, which originally meant bonds- 
man, come to signify every thing which is hateful ? That 
language should thus inadvertently embody the dislike of 
mankind for those who most display the instinct of sub- 
ordination, is alone sufficient proof that this instinct is 
associated with evil dispositions. It has been the parent 
of countless crimes. It is answerable for the torturing 
and murder of the noble-minded who would not submit — 
for the horrors of Bastiles and Siberias. It has ever been 
the represser of knowledge, of free thought, of true pro- 
gress. In all times it has fostered the vices of courts, and 
made those vices fashionable throughout nations. With a 
George IV. on the throne, it weekly tells ten thousand 
lies, in the shape of prayers for a " most religious and gra- 
cious king." And even now it is daily guilty of false- 
hood, in selling and buying portraits which every one 
knows to be utterly untrue. Whether you read the an- 
nals of the far past — whether you look at the various un- 
civilized races dispersed over the globe — or whether you 
contrast the existing nations of Europe ; you equally find 
that submission to authority decreases as morality and in- 
telligence increase. From ancient warrior-worship down 
to modern flunkeyism, the sentiment has ever been strong- 
est where human nature has been vilest. 

This relation between barbarism and loyalty, is one of 
those beneficent arrangements which " the servant and 
interpreter of nature " everywhere meets with. The sub- 
ordination of many to one, is a form of society needful for 
men so long as their natures are savage, or anti-social ; 
and that it may be maintained, it is needful that they 
should have an extreme awe of the one. Just in propor- 
tion as their conduct to each other is such as to breed per 



196 



REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 



petual antagonism, endangering social union ; just in that 
proportion must there he a reverence for the strong, 
determined, cruel ruler, who alone can repress their ex- 
plosive natures, and keep them from mutual destruction. 
Among such a people any form of free government — pre- 
supposing as it does some share of equitable feeling and 
self-control in those concerned — is an impossibility : there 
must be a despotism as stern as the people are sav 
and that such a despotism may exist, there must be a su- 
perstitious "worship of the despot. But fast as the disci- 
pline of social life modifies the human character — as fist as, 
through lack of use, the old predatory, aggressive instincts 
dwindle — as fast as, by constant exercise, the sympathetic 
feelings grow; so fast does this hard rule become less 
necessary; so last does the authority of the ruler dimin- 
ish; so fast does the awe of him disappear. From being 
originally god, or demi-god, he comes at length to be a 
very ordinary person; liable to be criticized, ridiculed, 
caricatured. 

Various influences conspire to this result. Accumulat- 
ing knowledge gradually divests the ruler of those super- 
natural attributes at first aseribed to him. The concep- 
tions which developing science gives of the grandeur of 
creation, as well as the constancy and irresistibleness of 
its Omnipresent Cause, make all feel the comparative 
littleness of human power; and the awe once felt for the 
great man, is, by degrees, transferred to that Universe of 
which the great man is seen to form but an insignificant 
part. Continued increase of population, with its average 
percentage of great men, involves the comparative fre- 
quency of such ; and the more numerous they are, the 
less respect can be given to each: they dwarf each other. 
As society gets settled and organized, its welfare and pro 
gress become more and more independent of any one. In 
a primitive society, the death of a chief may alter the 



DECLINE OF DESPOTIC POWER. 197 

whole course of things ; but in a society like ours, things 
go on much as before, no matter who dies. Thus, many 
influences combine to diminish autocratic power, whether 
political or other. It is true, not only in the sense in 
which Tennyson writes it, but also in a higher sense, 
that — 

" The individual withers, and the world Is more and more." 

Further, it is to be noted that while the unlimited 
authority of the greatest man ceases to be needful ; and 
while the superstitious awe which upholds that unlimited 
authority dwindles ; it at the same time becomes impossi- 
ble to get the greatest man to the top. In a rude social 
state, where might is right, where war is the business of 
life, where the qualities required in the ruler, alike for con- 
trolling his subjects and defeating his enemies, are bodily 
strength, courage, cunning, will, it is easy to pick out the 
best; or rather — he picks himself out. The qualities 
which make him the fittest governor for the barbarians 
around him, are the qualities by which he gets the mas- 
tery over them. But, in an advanced, complex, and com- 
paratively peaceful state like ours, these are not the quali- 
ties needed (and even were they needed, the firmly-organ- 
ized arrangements of society do not allow the possessor 
of them to break through to the top). For the rule of a 
settled, civilized community, the characteristics required 
are — not a love of conquest, but a desire for the general 
happiness ; not undying ' hate of enemies, but a calm dis- 
passionate equity; not artful manoeuvring, but philosophic 
insight. How is the man most endowed with these to be 
found ? In no country is he ordinarily born heir to the 
throne ; and that he can be chosen out of thirty millions 
of people none will be foolish enough to think. The in- 
capacity for recognizing the greatest worth, we have 
already seen illustrated in our parliamentary elections. 



198 KEPEESENTATTVE GOYEEXMEXT. 

And if the few thousands forming a constituency, cannot 
pick out from among themselves their wisest man ; still 
less can the mLlions forming a nation do it. Just as fast 
as society becomes populous, complex, peaceful, so fast 
does the political supremacy of the best become im 
possible. 

But even were the relation of autocrat and slave a 
morally wholesome one ; and even were it possible to find 
the fittest man to be autocrat ; we should still contend 
that such a form of government is bad. We should not 
contend this simply on the ground that self-government is 
a valuable educator. But we should take the ground that 
no human being, however wise and good, is fit to be sole 
ruler over the doings of an involved society; and that, 
with the best intentions, a benevolent despot is very likely 
to produce the most terrible mischiefs, which would else 
have been impossible. We will take the case of all others 
the most favourable to those who would give supreme 
power to the best. We will instance Mr. Carlyle's model 
hero — Cromwell. Doubtless there was much in the man- 
ners of the times when Puritanism arose, to justify its dis- 
gust. Doubtless the vices and follies bequeathed by effete 
Catholicism still struggling for existence, were bad enough 
to create a reactionary asceticism. It is in the order of 
Nature, however, that men's habits and pleasures are not 
to be changed suddenly. For any permanent effect to be 
produced, it must be produced slowly. Better tastes, 
higher aspirations, must be developed ; not enforced from 
without. 

Disaster is sure to result from the withdrawal of lower 
gratifications before higher ones have taken their place* 
for gratification of some kind is a condition to healthful 
existence. Whatever ascetic morality, or rather im- 
morality, may say, pleasures and pains are the incentives 
and restraints by which Nature keeps her progeny from 



THE REACTION AFTER CROMWELL. 199 

destruction. No contemptuous title of " pig-philosophy '* 
will alter the eternal fact, that Misery is the highway to 
Death ; while Happiness is added Life, and the giver of 
Life. But indignant Puritanism could not see this truth ; 
and with the extravagance of fanaticism sought to abolish 
pleasure in general. Getting into power, it put down not 
only questionable amusements, but all others along with 
them. And for these repressions, Cromwell, either as 
enacting, maintaining, or allowing them, was responsible. 
What, now, was the result of this attempt to dragoon 
men into virtue ? What came when the strong man, who 
thought he was thus " helping God to mend all," died ? 
A dreadful reaction brought in one of the most degraded 
periods of our history. Into the newly-garnished house 
entered " seven other spirits more wicked than the first." 
For generations the English character was lowered : vice 
was gloried in, virtue was ridiculed ; dramatists made 
marriage the stock-subject of laughter; profaneness and 
obscenity flourished ; high aspirations ceased ; the- whole 
age was corrupt. Not until George III. reigned was 
there a better standard of living. And for this century 
of demoralization we have, in great measure, to thank 
Cromwell. Is it, then, so clear that the domination of one- 
man, righteous though he may be, is a blessing ? 

Lastly, it is to be remarked that when the political 
supremacy of the greatest no longer exists in an overt 
form, it still continues in a disguised and more beneficent 
form. For is it not manifest, that in these latter days the 
wise man eventually gets his edicts enforced by others, if 
not by himself. Adam Smith, from his chimney-corner, 
dictated greater changes than prime ministers do. A 
General Thompson who forges the weapons with which 
the Anti-Corn-Law battle is fought — a Cobden and a 
Bright who add to and wield them, forward civilization 
much more than those who hold sceptres. Repugnant as 



200 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

the fact may "be to statesmen, it is yet one which cannot 
be gainsayed. Whoever, to the great effects already pro- 
duced by Free-trade, joins the far greater effects that will 
be hereafter produced, not only on ourselves but on all 
the other nations who must adopt our policy, must see 
that the revolution initiated by these men is fir wider 
than has been initiated by any potentate of modern times. 
As Mr. Carlyle very well knows, those who elaborate new 
truths and teach them to their fellows, are now-a-days the 
real rulers — "the unacknowledged legislators" — the vir- 
tual kings. From afar off, those who sit on thrones and 
form cabinets are perceived to be but the servants of such. 
And then note that the power thus indirectly exercised, is 
no longer a dangerous one; but one that is almost uni- 
formly beneficial. For when, as with ourselves, the dicta 
of the Thinker cannot get established in law until after a 
long battle of opinion — when they have to prove their 
fitness for the Time by conquering Time ; Ave have a 
guarantee that no great changes which are ill-considered 
or premature can be brought about. We have the good 
which great men can do us, while we are saved from the 
evil. 

No; the old regime has passed away, never to return. 
For ourselves at least, the subordination of the many to 
the one, has become alike needless, repugnant, and im] 
ble. Good for its time, bad for ours, the ancient " hero- 
worship "is dead; and happily no declamations, be they 
never so eloquent, can revive it. 

Here seem to be two irreconcileable positions — two 
mutually-destructive arguments. First, a condemnatory 
criticism on representative government, and then a still 
more condemnatory criticism on monarchical government: 
each apparently abolishing the other. 

Nevertheless, the paradox is easily explicable. It id 



IN WHAT IT IS THE BEST. 201 

quite possible to say all that we have said concerning the 
defects of representative government, and still to hold 
that it is the best form of government. Nay, it is quite 
possible to derive a more profound conviction of its 
superiority from the very evidence which appears so un- 
favourable to it. 

For nothing that we have urged tells against its good- 
ness as a means of securing justice between man and man, 
or class and class. Abundant evidence shows that the 
maintenance of equitable relations among its subjects, 
which forms the essential business of a ruling power, is 
surest when the ruling power is of popular origin ; not- 
withstanding the defects to which such a ruling power is 
liable. For discharging the true function of a government, 
representative government is shown to be the best, alike 
by its origin, its theory, and its results. Let us glance at 
the facts under these three heads. 

Alike in Spain, in England, and in France, popular 
power embodied itself as a check upon kingly tyranny, 
that is — kingly injustice. The earliest accounts we have 
of the Spanish Cortes, say that it was their office to advise 
the King; and to follow their advice was his duty. 
They petitioned, remonstrated, complained of grievances, 
and supplicated for redress. The King, having acceded 
to their requirements, swore to observe them ; and it was 
agreed that any act of his in contravention of the statutes 
thus established, should be " respected as the King's com- 
mands, but not executed, as contrary to the rights and 
privileges of the subject." In all which we see very 
clearly that the special aim of the Cortes was to get recti- 
fied the injustices committed by the King or others ; 
that the King was in the habit of breaking the promises 
of amendment he made to them ; and that they had 
to adopt measures to enforce the fulfilment of his 
promises. 



202 KEPKESENTATTVE GOYEEXMEST. 

In England we trace analogous facts. The Barons 
who bridled the tyranny of King John, though not 
formally appointed, were virtually impromptu representa- 
tives of the nation; and in their demand that justice 
should neither be sold, denied, nor delayed, we discern 
the social evils which led to this taking of the power into 
their own hands. In early times the knights and bur- 
gesses, summoned by the King with the view of getting 
supplies from them, had for their especial business to ob- 
tain from him the redress of grievances, that is — the exe- 
cution of justice ; and in their eventually-obtained and 
occasionally-exercised power of withholding supplies until 
justice was granted, we see both the need there was for 
remedying the iniquities of autocracy, and the adaptation 
of representative institutions to this end. And the further 
development of popular power latterly obtained, origin- 
ated from the demand for fairer laws — for less class-privi- 
lege, class-exemption, class-injustice: a fact which the 
speeches of the Reform-Bill agitation abundantly prove. 
In France, again, representative government grew into a 
definite form under the stimulus of unbearable oppression. 
When the accumulated extortion of centuries had reduced 
the mass of the people to misery — when millions of hag- 
gard faces were seen throughout the land — when starv- 
ing complainants were hanged on " a gallows forty feet 
high" — when the exactions and cruelties of goo d-for-no th- 
ing kings and vampyre-nobles had brought the nation to 
the eve of dissolution ; there came, as a remedy, an assem- 
bly of men elected by the people. 

That, considered d priori, representative government 
is fitted for establishing just laws, is implied by the una- 
nimity with which Spanish, English, and French availed 
themselves of it to this end; as well as by the endeavours 
latterly made by other European nations to do the like. 
The rationale of the matter is simple enough. Manifestly, 



THE BEST FOR EFFECTING JUSTICE. 203 

on the average of cases, a man will protect his own inter- 
ests more solicitously than others will protect them for 
him. Manifestly, where regulations have to he made 
affecting the interests of several men, they are most likely 
to be equitably made when all those concerned are pres- 
ent, and have equal shares in the making of them. And 
manifestly, where those concerned are so numerous and so 
dispersed, that it is physically impossible for them all to 
take part in the framing of such regulations, the next best 
thing is for the citizens in each locality to appoint one of 
their number to speak for them, to care for their claims, 
to be their representative. The general principle is, that 
the welfare of all will be most secure when each looks 
after his own welfare ; and the principle is carried out as 
directly as the circumstances permit. It is inferable, alike 
from human nature and from history, that a single man 
cannot be trusted with the interests of a nation of men, 
where his real or imagined interests clash with theirs. It 
is similarly inferable from human nature and from history, 
that no small section of a nation, as the nobles, can be ex- 
pected to consult the welfare of the people at large in pref- 
erence to their own. And it is further inferable that only 
in a general diffusion of political power, is there a safe- 
guard for the general welfare. 

This has all along been the conviction under which 
representative government has been advocated, main- 
tained, and extended. From the early writs that sum- 
moned the members of the House of Commons — writs 
which declared it to be a most equitable rule that the laws 
which concerned all should be approved of by all — down 
to the reasons now urged by the unenfranchised for a par- 
ticipation in political power ; this is the implied theory. 
Observe, nothing is said about wisdom or administrative 
ability. From the beginning, the end in view has been 
justice. Whether we consider the question in the abstract, 



204: REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

or whether we examine the opinions men have entertained 
upon it from old times down to the present day, we equally 
see the theory of representative government to be, that 
it is the best means of insuring equitable social rela- 
tions. 

And do not the results justify the theory ? Did not 
our early Parliaments, after long-continued struggles, 
succeed in curbing the licentious exercise of royal power ; 
and in establishing the rights of the subject ? Are not 
the comparative security and justice enjoyed under our 
form of government, indicated by the envy with which 
other nations regard it ? Was not the election of the 
French Constituent Assembly followed by the sweeping 
away of the grievous burdens that weighed down the peo- 
ple — by the abolition of tithes, seignorial dues, gabelle, 
excessive preservation of game — by the withdrawal of 
numerous feudal privileges and immunities — by the manu- 
mission of the slaves in the French colonies ? And has 
not that extension of our own electoral system embodied 
in the Reform-Bill, brought about more equitable arrange- 
ments ? — as witness the repeal of the Corn-Laws, and 
the equalization of probate and legacy duties. The 
proofs are undeniable. It is clear, both d priori and <l 
posteriori, that representative government is especially 
adapted for the establishment and maintenance of just 
laws. 

And now mark that the objections to representative 
government awhile since urged, scarcely tell against it at 
all, so long as it does not exceed this comparatively lim- 
ited function. Though its mediocrity of intellect makes 
it incompetent to oversee and regulate the countless in- 
volved processes which make up the national life : it 
nevertheless has quite enough intellect to enact and en- 
force those simple principles of equity which underlie the 
right conduct of citizens to each other. Those are such 



WHAT IT IS FITTED TO DO. 205 

that the commonest minds in a civilized community can 
understand their chief applications. Stupid as may be 
the average elector, he can see the propriety of such regu- 
lations as shall prevent men from murdering and robbing 
each other ; he can understand the fitness of laws which 
enforce the payment of debts ; he can perceive the need of 
measures to prevent the strong from tyrannizing over the 
weak ; and he can feel the rectitude of a judicial system 
that is the same for rich and poor. The average represent- 
ative may be but of small capacity, but he is competent, 
under the leadership of his wiser fellows, to devise appli- 
ances for carrying out these necessary restraints ; or rather 
— he is competent to uphold the set of appliances slowly 
elaborated by the many generations of his predecessors, 
and to do something towards improving and extending 
them in those directions where the need is most manifest. 
It is true that even these small demands upon electora] 
and senatorial wisdom are but imperfectly met. 

But though constituencies are blind to the palpable 
truth, that if they would escape laws which favour the 
nobility at the expense of the commonalty, they must 
cease to choose representatives from among the nobility ; 
yet when the injustice of this class-legislation is glaring — 
as in the case of the Corn-Laws — they have sense enough 
to use means for getting it abolished. And though most 
legislators have not sufficient penetration to perceive that 
the greater part of the evils which they attempt to cure 
by official inspection and regulation, would disappear 
were there a certain, prompt, and cheap administration of 
justice ; yet, the County-Courts-Act, and other recent 
law-reforms, show that they do eventually recognize the 
importance of more efficient judicial arrangements. While, 
therefore, the lower average of intelligence which necessa- 
rily characterizes representative government, unfits it for 
discharging the complex business of regulating the entire 



306 REPRESENTATIVE GOVEPwXMENT. 

national life ; it does not unfit it for discharging the com- 
paratively simple duties of protector. Again, in respect 
of this original, all-essential function of a government, 
there is a much clearer identity of interest between repre- 
sentative and citizen, than in respect of the multitudinous 
other functions which governments undertake. Though it 
is generally of but little consequence to the member of 
Parliament whether state-teachers, state-preachers, state- 
officers of health, state-dispensers of charity, etc., do their 
work well ; it is of great personal consequence to him that 
life and property should be secure : and hence he is more 
likely to care for the efficient administration of justice, 
than for the efficient administration of any thing else. 

Moreover, the complexity, incongruity of parts, and 
general cumbrousness which deprive a representative gov- 
ernment of that activity and decision required for pater- 
nally superintending the affairs of thirty millions of citi- 
zens ; do not deprive it of the ability to establish and 
maintain the regulations by which these citizens are pre- 
vented from trespassing against each other. (For the prin- 
ciples of equity are permanent as well as simple ; and once 
having been legally embodied in their chief outlines, all 
that devolves on a government is to develop them more 
perfectly, and improve the appliances for enforcing them : 
an undertaking for which the slow and involved action of 
a representative government does not unfit it. So that 
while by its origin, theory, and results, representative 
government is shown to be the best for securing justice 
between class and class, as well as between man and man ; 
the objections which so strongly tell against it in all its 
other relations to society, do not tell against it in this fun- 
damental relation. 7 

Thus, then, we reach the solution of the paradox. 
Here is the reconciliation between the two seemingly con- 
tradictory positions awhile since taken. To the question — 



THE PURE SCIENCE OF THE SUBJECT. 207 

What is representative government good for ? our reply 
is — It is good, especially good, good above all others, for 
doing the thing which a government should do. It is bad, 
especially bad, bad above all others, for doing the things 
which a government should not do. 

One point remains. We said, some distance back, 
that not only may representative government be the best, 
notwithstanding its many conspicuous deficiencies ; but 
that it is even possible to discern in these very deficiencies 
further proofs of its superiority. The conclusion just ar- 
rived at, implying, as it does, that these deficiencies tend 
to hinder it from doing the things which no government 
should do, has already furnished a key to this strange- 
looking assertion. But it will be well here to make a 
more specific justification of it. This brings us to the 
pure science of the matter. 

The ever-iD creasing complexity which characterizes ad- 
vancing societies, is a complexity that results from the 
multiplication of different parts performing different du- 
ties. The doctrine of the division of labour, is now-a-days 
understood by most to some extent ; and most know that 
by this division of labour, each operative, each manufac- 
turer, each town, each district, is constantly more and 
more restricted to one kind of work. Those who study 
the organization of living bodies, find the uniform process 
of development to be, that each organ gradually acquires 
a definite and limited function : there arises, step by step, 
a more perfect " physiological division of labour." And 
in an article on " Progress : its Law and Cause," published 
in our April number, we pointed oat that this increasing 
specialization of functions which goes on in all organized 
oodies, social as well as individual, is one of the manifes- 
tations of a still more general process pervading creation, 
inorganic as well as organic. 



208 REPKESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

Now this specialization of functions, which is the law 
of all organization, has a twofold implication. At the 
same time that each part grows adapted to the particular 
duty it has to discharge, it grows unadapted to all other 
duties. The becoming especially fit for one thing, is a be- 
coming less fit than before for every thing else. We have 
not space here to exemplify this truth. Any modern work 
on physiology, however, will furnish the reader with 
abundant illustrations of it, as exhibited in the evolution 
of living creatures ; and as exhibited in the evolution of 
societies, it may be studied in the writings of political 
economists. All which we wish here to point out is, that 
the governmental part of the body politic exemplifies this 
truth equally with its other parts. In virtue of this uni- 
versal law, a government cannot gain ability to perform 
its special work, without losing such ability as it had to 
perform other work. 

This then is, as we say, the pure science of the matter. 
The original and essential office of a government is that 
of protecting its subjects against aggression. In low, un- 
developed forms of society, where yet there is but little 
differentiation of parts, and little specialization of functions, 
this essential work, discharged with extreme imperfection, 
is joined with endless other work : the government has a 
controlling action over all conduct, individual and social — 
regulates dress, food, ablutions, prices, trade, religion — 
exercises unbounded power. In becoming so constituted 
as to discharge better its essential function, the govern- 
ment becomes more limited alike in the power and the 
habit of doing other things. Increasing ability to per- 
forin its true duty, involves increasing inability to perform 
all other kinds of action. And this conclusion, deducible 
from the universal law of organization, is the conclusion 
to which inductive reasoning has already led us. YVe 
have seen that, whether considered in theory or practice, 



PHILOSOPHIC CLAIMS OF THE DISCUSSION. 209 

representative government is the best for securing justice. 
We have also seen that, whether considered in theory or 
practice, it is the worst for all other purposes. And here 
we find that this last characteristic is a necessary acconi 
paniment of the first. These various incapacities, which 
seem to tell so seriously against the goodness of repre- 
sentative government, are but the inevitable consequences 
af its more complete adaptation to its proper work ; and, 
so understood, are themselves indications that it is the 
form of government natural to a more highly-organized 
and advanced social state. 

We do not expect this consideration to weigh much 
with those whom it most concerns. Truths of so abstract 
a character find no favour with senates. The metamor- 
phosis we have described is not mentioned in Ovid. His- 
tory as at present written, makes no comments on it. 
There is nothing about it to be found in blue-books and 
committee-reports. Neither is it proved by statistics. 
Evidently, then, it has but small chance of recognition 
by the " practical " legislator. But to the select few who 
study the Social Science, properly so called, we commend 
this general fact as one of the highest significance. Those 
who know something of the general laws of life, and who 
perceive that these general laws of life underlie all social 
phenomena, will see that this dual change in the character 
of advanced governments, involves an answer to the first 
of all political questions. They will see that this speciali- 
zation in virtue of which an advanced government gains 
power to perform one function, while it loses power to 
perform others, clearly indicates the true limitations of 
State-duty. They will see that, even leaving out all other 
evidence, this fact alone shows conclusively what is the 
proper sphere of legislation. 



VI 

PRISOX-ETIIICS. 



rriHE two antagonist theories of morals, like many 
_L_ other antagonist theories, are both right and both 
wrong. The d priori school has its truth ; the d post- 
school has its truth ; and for the proper guidance of con- 
duct, there must be due recognition of both. On the one 
hand, it is asserted that there is an absolute standard of 
rectitude ; and, respecting certain classes of actions, it is 
rightly so asserted. From the fundamental laws of life 
and the conditions of social existence, are deducible cer- 
tain imperative limitations to individual action — limita- 
tions which are essential to a perfect life, individual and 
social; or, in other words, essential to the greatest possi- 
ble happiness. And these limitations, following inevitably 
as they do from undeniable first principles, deep as the 
nature of life itself, constitute what we may distinguish as 
absolute morality. 

On the other hand, it is contended, and in a sense 
rightly contended, that with men as they are, and society 
as it is, the dictates of absolute morality are impracticable. 
Legal control, which involves the infliction of pain, alike 
on those who arc restrained and on those who pay the 
'„ost of restraining them, is proved by this fact to be not 






RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE EIGHT. 211 

Absolutely moral ; seeing that absolute morality is the 
regulation of conduct in such way that pain shall not be 
inflicted. Wherefore, if it be admitted that legal control 
is at present indispensable, it must be admitted that these 
d priori rules cannot be immediately carried out. And 
hence it follows that we must adapt our laws and actions 
to the existing character of mankind — that we must esti- 
mate the good or evil resulting from this or that arrange- 
ment, and so reach, d posteriori, a code fitted for the time 
being. In short, we must fall back on expediency, Now, 
each of these positions being valid, it is a grave mistake 
to adopt either to the exclusion of the other. They should 
be respectively appealed to for mutual qualification. Pro- 
gressing civilization, which is of necessity a succession of 
compromises between old and new, requires a perpetual 
readjustment of the compromise between the ideal and 
the practicable in social arrangements : to which end both 
elements of the compromise must be kept in view. If it 
is true that pure rectitude prescribes a system of things 
far too good for men as they are ; it is not less true that 
mere expediency does not of itself tend to establish a sys- 
tem of things any better than that which exists. While 
absolute morality owes to expediency the checks which 
prevent it from rushing into Utopian absurdities ; expe- 
diency is indebted to absolute morality for all stimulus to 
improvement. 

Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining 
what is relatively right / it still follows that we must first 
consider what is absolutely right ; since the one concep- 
tion presupposes the other. That is to say, though we 
must ever aim to do what is best for the present times, yet 
we must ever bear in mind what is abstractedly best ; so 
that the changes we make may be towards it, and not away 
from it. Unattainable as pure rectitude is, and may long 
continue to be, we must keep an eye on the compass whicl 



212 PRISON-ETHICS. 

tells us whereabout it lies ; or we shall otherwise be liable 
to wander in some quite opposite direction. 

Illustrations from our recent history will show very 
conclusively, we think, how important it is that considera- 
tions of abstract expediency should be joined with those 
of concrete expediency — how immense would be the evils 
avoided and the benefits gained, if d posteriori morality 
were enlightened by d priori morality. Take first the 
case of free trade. Until recently it has been the practice 
of all nations in all times, artificially to restrict their com- 
merce with other nations. Throughout past centuries 
this course may have been defensible as conducing to 
safety. Without saying that lawgivers had the motive of 
promoting industrial independence, it may yet be said 
that in ages when national quarrels were perpetual, it 
would not have been well for any people to be much de- 
pendent on others for necessary commodities. But though 
there is this ground for asserting that commercial restric- 
tions were once expedient, it cannot be asserted that our 
corn-laws were thus justified : it cannot be alleged that 
the penalties and prohibitions which, until lately, ham- 
pered our trade, were needful to prevent us from being 
industrially disabled by a war. Protection in all its forms 
was established and maintained for other reasons of expe- 
diency; and the reasons for which it was opposed and 
finally abolished were also those of expediency. Calcula- 
tions of immediate and remote consequences were set 
forth by the antagonist parties ; and the mode of decis- 
ion was by a balancing of these various anticipated con 
Bequences. 

And what, after generations of mischievous legislation 
and long years of arduous struggle, was the conclusion 
arrived at, and since justified by the results ? Exactly the 
one which abstract equity plainly teaches. The moral 
?ourse proves to be the politic course. That ability to 



INDICATIONS OF ABSOLUTE MORALITY. 213 

exercise the faculties, the total denial of which causes 
death — that liberty to pursue the objects of desire, with- 
out which there cannot be complete life — that freedom of 
action which his nature prompts every individual to claim, 
and on which equity puts no limit save the like freedom 
of action of other individuals, involves, among other corol- 
laries, freedom of exchange. Government which, in pro- 
tecting citizens from murder, robbery, assault, or other 
aggression, sl^ows us that it has the all-essential function 
of securing to each this free exercise of faculties within 
the assigned limits, is called on, in the due discharge of its 
function, to maintain this freedom of exchange ; and can- 
not abrogate it without reversing its function, and becom- 
ing aggressor instead of protector. Thus, absolute 
morality would all along have shown in what direction 
legislation should tend. Qualified only by the considera- 
tion that in turbulent times they must not be so carried 
out as to endanger national life, through suspensions in 
the supply of necessaries, these d priori principles would 
have guided statesmen, as fast as circumstances allowed, 
towards the normal condition. We should have been 
saved from thousands of needless .junctions. Such re- 
strictions as were needful would have been abolished as 
soon as was safe. An enormous amount of suffering 
would have been prevented. That prosperity which we 
now enjoy would have commenced much sooner. And 
our present condition would have been one of far greater 
power, wealth, happiness, and morality. 

Our railway-politics furnish another instance. A vast 
loss of national capital has been incurred, and great misery 
has been inflicted, in consequence of the neglect of a sim- 
ple principle clearly dictated by abstract justice. Whoso 
enters into a contract, though he is bound to do that 
which the contract specifies, is not bound to do some other 
thing which is neither specified nor implied in the con- 



214: PEISON-ETHICS. 

tract. We do not appeal to moral perception only k 
warranty of this position. It is one deducible from that 
first principle of equity which, as above pointed out, fol- 
lows from the laws of life, individual and social ; and it is 
one which the accumulated experience of mankind has so 
uniformly justified, that is has become a tacitly-recog* 
nized doctrine of civil law among all nations. In cases ot 
dispute respecting agreements, the question brought to 
trial always is, whether the terms of the a-~^eement bind 
one or other of the contracting parties to dc^this or that ; 
and it is assumed as a matter of course, that neither of 
them can be called upon to do more than is expressed or 
understood in the agreement. 

Now, this almost self-evident principle has been wholly 
ignored in railway-legislation. A shareholder, uniting 
with others to make and work a line from one specified 
place to another specified place, binds himself to pay cer- 
tain sums in furtherance of the project ; and, by implica- 
tion, agrees to yield to the majority of his fellow-share- 
holders on all questions raised respecting the execution of 
this project. But he commits himself no further than this. 
He is not required cO obey the majority concerning things 
not named in the deed of incorporation. Though with 
respect to the specified railway he has bound himself, he 
has not bound himself with respect to any w;?speeified 
railway which his co-proprietors may wish to make : and 
he cannot be committed to such unspecified railway by a 
vote of the majority. But this distinction has been wholly 
passed over. Shareholders in joint-stock undertakings, 
have been perpetually involved in various other under- 
takings subsequently decided on by their fellow-share- 
holders; and against their will have had their properties 
heavily mortaged for the execution of projects that were 
ruinously unremunerative. In every case the proprietary 
contract for making a particular railway, has been dealt 



REQUIREMENTS OF ABSOLUTE ETHICS. 215 

with as though it were a proprietary contract for making 
railways! Not only have directors thus misinterpreted 
it, and not only have shareholders foolishly allowed it to 
be thus misinterpreted ; but legislators have so little un 
derstood their duties, as to have constantly endorsed the 
misinterpretation. To this simple cause has been owing 
most of our railway-companies' disasters. Abnormal 
facilities for getting capital have caused reckless competi- 
tion in extension-making and branch-making, and the pro- 
jection of needless opposition lines, got up to be purchased 
by the companies they threatened. Had each new scheme 
been executed by an independent body of shareholders, 
without any guarantee from another company — without 
any capital raised by preference-shares, there would have 
been little or none of the ruinous expenditure we have 
seen. Something like a hundred millions of money would 
have been saved, and thousands of families preserved from 
misery, had the proprietary-contract been enforced accord- 
ing to the dictates of pure equity. 

We think these cases go far to justify our position. 
The general reasons we gave for thinking that the ethics 
of immediate experience must be enlightened by abstract 
ethics, to ensure correct guidance, are strongly enforced 
by these instances of the gigantic errors that are made 
when abstract ethics are ignored. The complex esti. 
mates of relative expediency, cannot do without the 
clue furnished by the simple deductions of absolute ex- 
pediency. 

"We propose to study the treatment of criminals from 
this point of view. And first, let us set down those tem- 
porary requirements which have hitherto prevented, and 
do still, in part, prevent the establishment of a perfectly 
just system. 

The same average popular character which necessitates 
10 



216 PRisox-ETmcs. 

a rigorous form of government, necessitates also a rigor 
ous criminal code. Institutions are ultimately determined 
by the natures of the citizens living under them ; and when 
these citizens are too impulsive or selfish for free institu- 
tions, and unscrupulous enough to supply the requisite staff 
of agents for maintaining tyrannical institutions, they are 
proved by implication to be citizens who will both toler- 
ate, and will probably need, severe forms of punishment. 
The same mental defect underlies both results. The char- 
acter which originates and sustains political liberty, is a 
chai-acter swayed by remote considerations — a character 
not at the mercy of immediate temptations, but one which 
contemplates the consequences likely to arise in future. 
We have only to remember that, among ourselves, a 
political encroachment is resisted, not because of any di- 
rect evil it inflicts, but because of the evils likely hereaf- 
ter to flow from it, to see how the maintenance of freedom 
presupposes the habit of weighing distaut results, and 
being chiefly guided by them. 

Conversely, it is manifest that men who dwell only in 
the present, the special, the concrete — who do not realize 
with clearness the contingencies of the future — will put 
little value on those rights of citizenship which profit them 
nothing, save as a means of warding off unspecified evils 
that can possibly affect them only at a distant time in an 
obscure way. Well, is it not obvious that the forms of 
mind thus contrasted, will require diflerent kinds of pun- 
ishment for misconduct ? To restrain the second, there 
must be penalties that are severe, prompt, and specific 
enough to be vividly conceived ; while the first maybe 
deterred by penalties that are less definite, less intense, 
less immediate. For the more civilized, dread of a long. 
monotonous, criminal discipline may suffice; but for the less 
civilized there must be inflictions of bodily pain and death. 
Thus we hold, not only that a social condition which gen- 



WHEN PENAL CODES MUST BE SEVERED. 217 

erates a harsh form of government, also of necessity gen- 
erates harsh retributions ; but also, that in such a social 
condition, harsh retributions are requisite. And there are 
facts which illustrate this. Witness the case of one of the 
Italian states, in which the punishment of death having 
been abolished in conformity with the wish of a dying 
duchess, assassinations increased so greatly that it became 
needful to reestablish it. 

Besides the fact that in the less-advanced stages of 
civilization, a bloody penal code is both a natural product 
of the time, and a needful restraint for the time ; there 
must be noted the fact that a more equitable and humane 
code could not be carried out from want of fit administra- 
tion. To deal with delinquents, not by short and sharp 
methods, but by such methods as abstract justice indi- 
cates, implies a class of agencies too complicated to exist 
under a low social state, and a class of officers more trust- 
worthy than can be found among the citizens in such a 
state. Especially would the equitable treatment of crimi- 
nals be impracticable where the amount of crime was very 
great. The number to be dealt with would be unman- 
ageable. Some simpler method of purging the community 
of its worst members becomes, under such circumstances, 
a necessity. 

The inapplicability of an absolutely just system of 
penal discipline to a barbarous or semi-barbarous people, 
is thus, we think, as manifest as is the inapplicability of 
an absolutely just form of government to them. And in 
the same manner that, for some nations, a despotism is 
warranted; so may a criminal code of the extremest 
severity be warranted. In either case the defence is, that 
the institution is as good as the average character of the 
people permits — that less stringent institutions would en- 
tail social confusion and its far more severe evils. Bad as 
a despotism is, yet where anarchy is the only alternative, 



218 PRISON-ETHICS. 

we must say that, as anarchy would bring greater suft'er 
ing than despotism brings, despotism is justified by the 
circumstances. And similarly, however inequitable in 
the abstract were the beheadings, hangings, and burnings 
of ruder ages, yet, if it be shown that, without penalties 
thus extreme, the safety of society could not have been 
insured — if, in their absence, the increase of crime would 
have inflicted a larger total of evil, and that, too, on 
peaceable members of the community ; tlirr. it follows that 
morality warranted this severity. In the one case, as in 
the other, we must say that, measured by the quantities 
of pain respectively inflicted and avoided, the course pur- 
sued was the least wrong ; and to say that it was the least 
wrong is to say that it was relatively right* 

But while we thus admit all that can be alleged by 
the defenders of Draconian codes, we go on to assert a 
correlative truth which they overlook. While fully 
recognizing the evils that must follow the premature 
establishment of a penal system dictated by pure equity, 
let us not overlook the evils that have arisen from 
altogether rejecting the guidance of pure equity. Let us 
note how terribly the one-sided regard for immediate ex- 
pediency has retarded the ameliorations from time to time 
demanded. 

Consider, for instance, the immense amount of Buffer- 
ing and demoralization needlessly caused by our severe 
laws in the last century. Those many merciless penalties 
which Romilly and others succeeded in abolishing, were 
as little justified by social necessities as by abstract 
morality. Experience has since proved that to hang men 
for theft, was not requisite for the security of property; 
and that such a measure was opposed to pure equity, 
scarcely needs saying. Evidently, had considerations of 
relative expediency been all along qualified by considera- 
tions of absolute expediency, these severities, with theif 



EFFECTS OF BAEBAEOUS DISCIPLINE. 219 

many concomitant evils, would have ceased long before 
they did. 

Again, the dreadful misery, demoralization, and crime, 
generated by the harsh treatment of transported convicts, 
would have been impossible had our authorities consid- 
ered what seemed just as well as what seemed politic. 
There would never have been inflicted on transports the 
shocking cruelties proved before the Parliamentary Com- 
mittee of 1848. We should not have had men condemned 
to the horrors of the chain-gang even for insolent looks. 
There could not have been perpetrated such an atrocity 
as that of locking up chain-gangs " from sunset to sunrise 
in the caravans or boxes used for this description of pris- 
ons, which hold from twenty to twenty-eight men, but in 
which the whole number can neither stand upright nor 
sit down at the same time, except with their legs at right 
angles to their bodies." Men would never have been 
doomed to tortures extreme enough to produce despair, 
desperation, and further crimes — tortures under which " a 
man's heart is taken from him, and there is given to him 
the heart of a beast," as said by one of these law-produced 
criminals before his execution. We should not have been 
told, as by a chief justice of Australia, that the discipline 
was " carried to an extent of suffering, such as to render 
death desirable, and to induce many prisoners to seek U 
under its most appalling aspects." Sir G. Arthur would 
not have had to testify that, in Van Diemen's Land, con- 
victs committed murder for the purpose " of being sent up 
to Hobart Town for trial, though aware that in the ordi- 
nary course they must be executed within a fortnight after 
arrival;" nor would tears of commiseration have been 
drawn from Judge Burton's eyes, by one of these cruelly- 
used transports placed before him for sentence. In brief, 
had abstract equity joined with immediate expediency in 
ievising convict discipline, not only would untold suffei 



220 PEISON-ETHICS. 

ing, degradation, and mortality have been prevented ; but 
those who were responsible for atrocities like those above- 
named, would not themselves be chargeable with crime, 
as we now hold them to be. 

Probably we shall meet with a less general assent 
when, as a further benefit which the guidance of absolutt 
morality would have conferred, we instance the preven- 
tion of such methods as those in use at Pentonville. How 
the silent and the separate systems are negatived by ab- 
stract justice we shall by and by see. For the present, 
the position we have to defend is, that these systems are 
bad. That but a moderate percentage of the prisoners 
subjected to them are reconvicted, may be true ; though, 
considering the fallaciousness of negative statistics, tm* 
by no means proves that those not reconvicted are re- 
formed. But the question is not solely, how many pris- 
oners are prevented from again committing crime ? A 
further question is, how many of them have become self- 
supporting members of society? It is notorious that this 
prolonged denial of human intercourse not unfrcquently 
produces insanity or imbecility; and on those who re- 
main sane, its depressing influence must almost of necessity 
entail serious debility, bodily and mental.* 

Indeed, we think it probable that much of the apparei t 
success is due to an enfeeblement which incapacitates lor 
crime as much as for industry. Our own objection to 
such methods, however, has always been, that their effect 
on the moral nature is the very reverse of that required. 
Crime is anti-social — is" prompted by self-regarding feel- 
ings, and checked by social feelings. The natural prompt* 

* Mr. Bailhe-Coehrane says : — " The officers at the Dartmoor prison 
Inform me that the prisoners who arrive there even after one year's confine- 
ment at Pentonville, may be distinguished from the others by their misera- 
ble downcast look In most instances their brain is affected, and they art 
anable to give sat>sf' ctory replies to the simplest questions." 



BAD EFFECTS OF THE SOLITARY SYSTEM. 221 

ei of right conduct to others, and the natural opponent 
of misconduct to others, is sympathy; for out of sympathy 
grow both the kindly emotions, and that sentiment of 
justice which restrains us from aggressions. Well, this 
sympathy, which makes society possible, is cultivated by 
social intercourse. By habitual participation in the pleas- 
ures of others, the faculty is strengthened ; and whatever 
prevents this participation, weakens it — an effect com- 
monly illustrated in the selfishness of old bachelors. 
Hence, therefore, we contend that shutting up prisoners 
within themselves, or forbidding all interchange of feeling, 
inevitably deadens such sympathies as they have ; and so 
tends rather to diminish than to increase the moral check 
to transgression. This d priori conviction, which we have 
long entertained, we now find confirmed by facts. Cap- 
tain Maconochie states, as a result of observation, that a 
long course of separation so fosters the self-regarding 
desires, and so weakens the sympathies, as to make even 
well-disposed men very unfit to bear the little trials of 
domestic life on their return to their homes. Thus there 
is good reason to think that, while silence and solitude 
may cow the spirit or undermine the energies, it cannot 
produce true reformation. 

" But how can it be shown," asks the reader, " that 
these injudicious penal systems are inequitable ? Where 
is the method which will enable us to say what kind of 
punishment is justified by absolute morality, and what 
kind is not ? " These questions we will now attempt to 
answer. 

So long as the individual citizen pursues the objects of 
his desires without diminishing the equal freedom of any 
of his fellow-citizens to do the like, society cannot equita- 
bly interfere with him. While he contents himself with 
the benefits w"»n by his own energies, and attempts not tc 



222 PRISON-ETHICS. 

intercept any of the benefits similarly -won for themselves 
by others, or any of those which Nature has conferred on 
them ; no legal penalties can rightly be inflicted on him. 
But when, by murder, theft, assault, or minor aggression, 
he has broken through these limits, the community is 
warranted alike by absolute and by relative expediency 
in putting him under restraint. On the relative expedi- 
ency of doing this we need say nothing : it is demon- 
strated by social experience. Its absolute expediency no* 
being so manifest, we will proceed to point out how it is 
deducible from the ultimate laws of life. 

All life depends on the maintenance of certain natural 
relations between actions and their results. This is true 
of life in both its lowest and its highest forms. If respira- 
tion docs not supply oxygen to the blood, as in the 
normal order of things it should do, but instead supplies 
carbonic acid, death very soon results. If the swallowing 
of food is not followed by the usual organic sequences — 
the contractions of the stomach, and the pouring into it 
of gastric juice — indigestion arises, and the energies flag. 
If active movements of the limbs fail in exciting the heart 
to supply blood more rapidly, or if the extra current pro- 
pelled by the heart is greatly retarded by an aneurism 
through which it passes, speedy prostration ensues — 
vitality rapidly ebbs. In which, and endless like c 
we see that bodily life depends on the maintenance of the 
established connections between physiological causes and 
their consequences. 

Among the intellectual processes, the same thing 
holds. If certain impressions made on the senses do not 
induce the appropriate muscular adjustments — if the brain 
is clouded with wine, or consciousness is preoccupied, or 
the perceptions are naturally obtuse; the bodily move- 
ments are so ill-controlled that accidents ensue. Where, 
as in paralytic patients, the natural link between mental 



CONDITIONS TO COMPLETE LIFE. 223 

impressions and the appropriate movements is broken, the 
life is greatly vitiated. And when, as during insanity, 
evidence fitted, according to the usual order of thought, 
to produce certain convictions, produces convictions of an 
opposite kind; conduct is reduced to chaos, and life en- 
dangered or cut short. So it is with the more involved 
phenomena. Just as we here find that, throughout both 
its physical and intellectual divisions, healthful life im- 
plies continuance of the established successions of antece- 
dents and consequents among our vital actions ; so shall 
we find it throughout the moral division. In our dealings 
with external Nature and our fellow men, there are rela- 
tions of cause and effect, on the maintenance of which, aa 
on the maintenance of the internal ones above instanced, 
complete life depends. Conduct of this or that kind tends 
ever to bring results which are pleasurable or painful — 
action to bring its appropriate reaction ; and the welfare 
of every one demands that these natural connections shall 
not be interfered with. 

To speak more specifically, we see that in the order of 
Nature, inactivity entails want ; and that, conversely, by 
activity are secured the means of material benefit. There 
is an ordained connection between exertion and the fulfil 
ment of certain imperative needs. If, now, this ordained 
connection is broken — if labour of body and mind have 
been gone through, and the produce of the labour is inter- 
cepted by another, one of the conditions to complete life 
is unfulfilled. The defrauded person is physically injured 
by deprival of the wherewithal to make good the wear 
and tear he had undergone ; and if the robbery be con- 
tinually repeated, he must die. Where all men are dis- 
honest a reflex evil results. When, throughout a society, 
the natural relation between labour and its produce is 
habitually broken, the lives of many are not only directly 
undermined; but the lives of all are indirectly under 



224 PRISON-ETHICS. 

ruined by the destruction of the motive for labour, and hj 
the consequent poverty. Thus, to demand that there shall 
be no breach of the normal sequence between labour and 
the benefits obtained by labour, is to demand that the laws 
of life shall be respected. 

What we call the right of property, is simply a 
corollary from certain necessary conditions to complete 
existence : it is a formulated recognition of the necessary 
relation between expenditure of force and the need for 
f orce-sustaining objects obtainable by the expenditure of 
force — a recognition in full of a relation which cannot be 
wholly ignored without causing death. And all else 
regarded as individual rights, are indirect implications of 
like nature — similarly insist on certain relations between 
man and man, as conditions without which there cannot 
be completely maintained that correspondence between 
inner and outer actions which constitutes life. It is not, 
as some moralists have absurdly asserted, that such rights 
are derived from human legislation ; nor is it, as asserted 
by others with absurdity almost as great, that there is no 
basis for them save the inductions of immediate expedi- 
ency. These rights are deducible from the established 
connections between our acts and their results. As cer- 
tainly as there are conditions which must be fulfilled be- 
fore life can exist, so certainly are there conditions which 
must be fulfilled before complete life can be enjoyed by 
the respective members of a society ; and those which we 
call the requirements of justice, simply answer to the most 
important of such conditions. 

Hence, if life is our legitimate aim — if absolute morality 
means, as it does, conformity to the laws of complete life ; 
then absolute morality warrants the restraint of those who 
force their fellow-citizens into non-conformity. Our justifi- 
cation is, that life is impossible save under certain condi- 
tions; that it cannot be perfect unless these conditions are 



WnAT MAY BE DEMANDED OF TIIE CEIMTNAL. 225 

maintained unbroken; and that if it is right for us to 
live, it is right for us to remove any one who either 
breaks these conditions in our persons or constrains us to 
break thein. 

Such being the basis of our right to coerce the crimi 
nal, there next come the questions : — What is the legiti- 
mate extent of the coercion ? Can we from this source 
derive authority for certain demands on him ? and are 
there any similarly-derived limits to such demands ? To 
both these questions there are affirmative answers. 

First, we find authority for demanding restitution or 
compensation. Conformity to the laws of life being the 
substance of absolute morality ; and the social regulations 
which absolute morality dictates, being those which make 
this conformity possible ; it is a manifest corollary that 
whoever breaks these regulations, may be justly required 
to undo, as far as possible, the wrong he has done. The 
object being to maintain the conditions essential to com- 
plete life, it follows that, when one of these conditions has 
been transgressed, the first thing to be required of the 
transgressor is, that he shall put matters as nearly as may 
be in the state they previously were. The property stolen 
shall be restored, or an equivalent for it given. Any 
one injured by an assault, shall have his surgeon's bill 
paid, compensation for lost time, and also for the suffer- 
ing he has borne. And similarly in all cases of infringed 
rights. 

Second, we are warranted by this highest authority in 
restricting the actions of the offender as much as is need- 
ful to prevent further aggressions. Any citizen who will 
not allow others to fulfil the conditions to complete life — 
who takes away the produce of his neighbour's labour, or 
deducts from that bodily health and comfort which his 
neighbour has earned by good conduct, must be forced to 
lesist. And society is warranted in using such force as 



220 PRISOX-ETHICS. 

may be found requisite. Equity justifies the fellow-citi- 
zens of such a man in limiting the free exercise of his fac- 
ulties to the extent necessary for preserving the free exer- 
cise of their own faculties. 

But now mark that absolute morality countenances no 
restraint beyond this — no gratuitous inflictions of pain, no 
revengeful penalties. Complete life being the end of mo- 
rality ; and the conditions it insists on being such as make 
possible this complete life to all members of a community; 
we cannot rightly abrogate the^s conditions, even in the 
person of a criminal, further than is needful to prevent 
greater abrogations of them. Freedom to fullil the laws 
of life being the thing insisted on, to the end that the sum 
of life may be the greatest possible ; it follows that the life 
of the offender must be taken into account as an item in this 
sum; and that we must permit him to live as completely as 
consists with social safety. It is commonly said that the 
criminal loses all his rights. This may be so according tc 
law, but it is not so according to justice. Such portion of 
them only is justly taken away, as cannot be left to him 
without danger to the community. Those exercises of 
faculty, and consequent benefits, which are possible under 
the necessary restraint, cannot be equitably denied. If 
any do not think it proper that we should be thus regard- 
ful of an offender's claims, let them consider for a moment 
the lesson which Nature reads us. 

We do not find that those divinely-ordained laws of 
life by which bodily health is maintained, are miraculously 
suspended in the person of the prisoner. In him, as in 
others, good digestion waits on appetite. If he is wound- 
ed, the healing process goes on with the usual rapidity. 
When he is ill, as much effect is expected from the vis 
medicatrix naturae by the medical officer, as in one who 
has not transgressed. His perceptions yield him guidance 
as they did before he was imprisoned ; and he is capable 



THE EIGHT TO COERCION LIMITED. 227 

of much the same pleasurable emotions. When we thus 
see that the beneficent arrangements of things, are no less 
uniformly sustained in his person than in that of another 
are we not bound to respect in his person such of these 
beneficent arrangements as we have power to thwart ? are 
we not bound to interfere with the laws of life no further 
than is absolutely needful ? 

If any still hesitate, there is another lesson for them 
having the same implication. Whoso disregards any one 
of those simpler laws of life out of which, as we have 
shown, the moral laws originate, has to bear the evil 
necessitated by the transgression — -just that, and no more. 
If, careless of your footing, you fall, the consequent bruise, 
and possibly some constitutional disturbance entailed by 
it, are all you have to suffer : there is not the further 
gratuitous penalty of a cold or an attack of small-pox. If 
you have eaten something which you know to be indigesti- 
ble, there follow certain visceral derangements and their 
concomitants ; but, for your physical sin, there is no ven- 
geance in the shape of a broken bone or a spinal affection. 
The punishments, in these and other cases, are neither 
greater nor less than flow from the natural working of 
things. Well, should we not with all humility follow this 
example ? Must we not infer that, similarly, a citizen 
who has transgressed the conditions to social welfare, 
ought to bear the needful penalties and restraints, but 
nothing beyond these. Is it not clear that neither by 
absolute morality nor by Nature's precedents, are we 
warranted in visiting on him any pains besides those in- 
volved in remedying, as far as may be, the evil committed, 
and prev anting other such evils ? To us it seems mani- 
fest that if society exceeds this, it trespasses against the 
criminal. 

Those who think, as many will probably do, that we 
are tending towards a mischievous leniency, will find that 



228 PEisoN-ETmcs. 

the next step in our argument disposes of any such 
objection ; for while equity forbids us to punish the crimi- 
nal otherwise than by making him suffer the natural con- 
sequences, these, when rigorously enforced, are quite 
severe enough. 

Society having proved in the high court of absolute 
morality, that the offender must make restitution or com- 
pensation, and submit to the restraints requisite for public 
safety ; and the offender having obtained from the same 
court the decision, that these restraints shall be no greater 
than the specified end requires ; society thereupon males 
the further demand that, while living in durance, the 
offender shall maintain himself; and this demand absolute 
morality at once endorses. The community having taken 
measures of self-preservation ; and having inflicted on the 
aggressor no punishments or disabilities beyond those in 
volved in these necessary measures ; is no further con 
cerned in the matter. With the support of the prisonei 
it has no more to do than before he committed the crime 
It is the business of society simply to defend itself against 
him ; and it is his business to live as well as he can undei 
the restrictions society is obliged to impose on him. A\ ] 
he may rightly ask is, to have the opportunity of Labour 
ing, and exchanging the produce of his labour for r. 
earics; and this claim is a corollary from that already 
admitted, that his actions shall not be restricted more 
than is needful for the public safety. With these oppor- 
tunities, however, he must make the best of his position. 
He must be content to gain as good a livelihood as the 
circumstances permit ; and if he cannot employ his pow- 
ers to the best advantage, if he has to work hard and lhre 
scantily, these evils must be counted among the penalties 
of his transgression — the natural reactions of his wrong 
action. 

On this self-maintenance equity sternly insists. The 



THE CONVICT SHOLLD EABN HIS SUPPORT. 229 

reasons which justify his imprisonment, equally justify the 
refusal to let him have any other sustenance than he earns. 
He is confined that he may not further interfere with the 
complete living of his fellow-citizens — that he may not 
again intercept any of those benefits which the order of 
Nature has conferred on them, or any of those procured 
by their exertions and careful conduct. And he is required 
to support himself for exactly the same reasons — that he 
may not interfere with others' complete living — that he 
may not intercept the benefits they earn. For, if other- 
wise, whence must come his food and clothing ? Directly 
from the public stores, and indirectly from the pockets o, 
all tax-payers. And what is the property thus abstracted 
from tax-payers ? It is the equivalent of so much benefit 
earned by labour. It is so much means to complete liv- 
ing. And when this property is taken away — when the 
toil has been gone through, and the produce it should 
have brought is intercepted by the tax-gatherer on behalf 
of the convict — the conditions to complete life are broken : 
the convict commits by deputy a further aggression on 
his fellow-citizens. 

It matters not that such abstraction is made according 
to law. -We are here considering the dictum of that 
authority which is above law ; and which law ought to 
enforce. And this dictum we find to be, that each indi- 
vidual shall take the evils and benefits of his own conduct 
— that the offender must suffer, as far as is possible, all 
pains entailed by his offence ; and must not be allowed to 
visit part of them on the innocent. Unless the criminal 
maintains himself, he indirectly commits an additional 
crime. Instead of restitution, he makes a new aggression. 
Instead of repairing the breach he has made in the con- 
ditions to complete social life, he widens this breach. He 
inflicts on others that very injury which the restraint im- 
posed on him was to prevent. As certainly, therefore, as 



230 PRISON-ETHICS. 

such restraint is warranted by absolute morality ; so ce-r 
tainly does absolute morality warrant us in refusing him 
gratuitous support. 

These, then, are the requirements of an equitable penal 
system: — That the aggressor shall make restitution or 
compensation ; that he shall be placed under the restraint? 
requisite for social security ; that neither any restraints 
beyond these, nor any gratuitous penalties, shall be in- 
flicted on him ; and that while living in confinement, or 
under surveillance, he shall maintain himself. We are 
not prepared to say that such dictates may at once be 
fully obeyed. Already we have admitted that the deduc- 
tions of absolute expediency must, in our transition state, 
be qualified by the inductions of relative expediency. 
We have pointed out that in rude times, the severest 
criminal codes were justified by morality; if, without 
them, crime could not be repressed and social safety in- 
sured. Whence, by implication, it follows that our pres- 
ent methods of treating criminals are warranted, if they 
come as near to those of pure equity as circumstances 
permit. That any system now feasible must fall short vt' 
the ideal sketched out, is very possible. It may be that 
the enforcement of restitution or compensation, is in many 
cases impracticable. It may be that on some convicts, 
penalties more severe than abstract justice demands must 
be inflicted. On the other hand, it may be that entire self- 
maintenance would entail on the wholly-unskilled criminal, 
a punishment too grievous to be borne. Bnt any such 
immediate shortcomings do not affect our argument. All 
we insist on is, that the 'commands of absolute morality 
shall be obeyed as far as possible — that we shall fulfil 
them up to those limits beyond which experiment pi 
that more evil than good results — that, ever keeping in 
view the ideal, each change Ave make shall be towards its 
realization. 



EFFECTS OF HUMANE TEEATMENT. 231 

But now we are prepared to say, that this ideal may 
be in great part realized at the present time. Experience 
m various countries, under various circumstances, has 
shown that immense benefits result from substituting for 
the old penal systems, systems that approximate to 
that above indicated. Germany, France, Spain, Eng- 
land, Ireland, and Australia, send statements to the 
effect that the most successful criminal discipline, is a 
discipline of decreased restraints and increased self- 
dependence. And the evidence proves the success to 
be greatest, where the nearest approach is made to the 
arrangements prescribed by abstract justice. We shall 
find the facts striking : some of them even astonish- 
ing. 

When M. Obermair was appointed Governor of the 
Munich State-Prison — 

" He found from 600 to 700 prisoners in the jail, in the worst 
state of insubordination, and whose excesses, he was told, defied 
the harshest and most stringent discipline ; the prisoners were all 
chained together, and attached to each chain was an iron weight, 
which the strongest found difficulty in dragging along. The guard 
consisted of about 100 soldiers, who did duty not only at the gates 
and around the walls, but also in the passages, and even in the 
workshops and dormitories ; and, strangest of all protections 
against the possibility of an outbreak or individual invasion, 
twenty to thirty large savage dogs, of the bloodhound breed, were 
let loose at night in the passages and courts to keep their watch 
and ward. According to his account the place was a perfect Pan- 
demonium, comprising, within the limits of a few acres, the worst 
passions, the most slavish vices, and the most heartless tyranny." 

M. Obermair gradually relaxed this harsh system. He 
greatly lightened the chains ; and would, if allowed, have 
thrown them aside. The dogs, and nearly all the guards, 
were dispensed with ; and the prisoners were treated with 
such consideration as to gain their confidence. Mr. Baillie- 



232 TEISOX-ETHICS. 

Cochrane, who visited the place in 1852, says the prison 
gates were 

'• Wide open, without any sentinel at the door, and a guard of 
only twenty men idling away their time in a guard-room off the 

entrance-hall None of the doors were provided with bolts 

and bars ; the only security was an ordinary lock, and as in most 
of the rooms the key was not turned, there was no obstacle to the 

men walking into the passage Over each workshop some 

of the prisoners with the best characters were appointed over- 
Beers, and M. Obermair assured me that if a prisoner transgressed 
a regulation, his companions generally told him, ' est ist verboten,' 
(it is forbidden), and it rarely happened tbat he did not yield to 

the opinion of his fellow-prisoners "Within the prison walls 

every description of work is carried on ; the prisoners, divided 
into different gangs and supplied with instruments and tools, make 
their own clothes, repair their own prison walls, and forge their 
own chains, producing various specimens of manufacture which 
are turned to most excellent account — the result being, that each 
prisoner, by occupation and industry, maintains himself; the sur- 
plus of his earnings being given him on his emancipation, avoids 
his being parted with in a state of destitution." 

And further, the prisoners " associate in their Leisure 
horn's, without any check on their intercourse, but at 
the same time under an efficient system of observation 
and control" — an arrangement by which, after many 
years' experience, M. Obermair asserts that morality is in- 
creased. 

And now what has been the result ? During his six- 
years' government of the Kaisers-lauten (the first prison 
under his care), M. Obermair discharged 132 criminals, of 
which number 123 have since conducted themselves well, 
and 7 have been recommitted. From the Mraich prison, 
between 1S43 and 1845, 29S prisoners were discharged. 
" Of these, 246 have been restored, improved, to society. 
Those whose characters are doubtful, but have not beer 



MILD DISCIPLINE SUCCESSFUL. 233 

remanded for any criminal act, 26 ; again under examina- 
tion, 4 ; punished by the police, 6 ; remanded, 8 ; died, 8." 
This statement, says M. Obermair, " is based on irrefuta- 
ble evidence." And to the reality of his success, we have 
the testimony not only of Mr. Baillie-Cochrane, but of the 
Rev. C. H. Townsend, Mr. George Combe, Mr. Matthew 
Hill, and Sir John Milbanke, our Envoy at the Court of 
Bavaria. 

Take, again, the case of Mettray. Every one has heard 
something about Mettray, and its success as a reformatory 
of juvenile criminals. Observe how nearly the successful 
system there pursued, conforms to the abstract principles 
above enunciated. 

This " Colonie Agricole " is " without wall or enclosure 
of any sort, for the purposes at least of confinement ; " and 
except when for some fault a child is temporarily put in a 
cell, there is no physical restraint. The life is industrial : 
the boys being brought up to trades or agriculture as they 
prefer ; and all the domestic services being discharged by 
them. " They all do their work by the piece ; " are re- 
warded according to the judgment of the chef <P atelier ; 
and a portion being placed at the disposal of the child, 
the rest is deposited in the savings-bank at Tours. " A 
boy in receipt of any money has to make payment for 
any part of his dress which requires to be renewed before 
the stated time arrives at which fresh clothing is given 

out ; on the other hand, if his clothes are found in 

good condition at such time, he receives the benefit of it 
by having the money which would have been laid out in 
clothes placed to his account. Two hours per day are 
allowed for play. Part-singing is taught ; and if a boy 
shows any turn for drawing he receives a little instruction 
in it Some of the boys also are formed into a fire- 
brigade, and have rendered at times substantial assistance 
in the neighbourhood." In which few leading facts do we 



234 PRISON-ETHICS. 

not clearly see that the essential peculiarities are — no more 
restraint than is absolutely necessary ; self-support as far 
as possible ; extra benefits earned by extra labour; and as 
much gratifying exercise of faculties as the circumstances 
permit. 

The "intermediate system" which has of late been 
carried out with much success in Ireland, exemplifies, in a 
degree, the practicability of the same general principles. 
Under this system, prisoners working as artisans are 
allowed " such a modified degree of liberty as shall in 
various ways prove their power of self-denial and self- 
dependence, in a manner wholly incompatible with the 
rigid restraints of an ordinary prison." An offender who 
has passed through this stage of probation, is tested by 
employment " on messenger's duties daily throughout the 
city, and also in special works required by the department 
outside the prison-walls. The performance of the duties 
of messengers entails their being out until seven or eight 
in the evening, unaccompanied by any officer; and although 
a small portion of their earnings is allowed them weekly, 
and they would have the power of compromising them- 
selves if so disposed, not one instance has as yet taken 
place of the slightest irregularity, or even the want of 
punctuality, although careful checks have been contrived 
to detect either, should it occur." A proportion of their 
prison-earnings is set aside for them in a savings-bank; 
and to this they are encouraged to add during their 
period of partial freedom, with a view to subsequent emi- 
gration. The results are : — " In the penitentiary the 
greatest possible order and regularity, and an amount of 
willing industry performed that cannot be obtained in the 
prisons." Employers to whom prisoners are eventually 
transferred, " have on many occasions returned for Others 
in consequence of the good conduct of those at first en- 
gaged." And according to Captain Croftoirs pamphlel 



WOFwKING OF THE MAEK SYSTEM. 235 

uf 1857, out of 112 conditionally discharged during tne 
previous year, 85 were going on satisfactorily, " 9 have 
been discharged too recently to be spoken of, and 5 have 
had their licenses revoked. As to the remaining 13, it 
has been found impossible to obtain accurate informa- 
tion, but it is supposed that 5 have left the country, and 3 
enlisted." 

The " mark system " of Captain Maconochie, is one 
which more fully carries out the principle of self-main- 
tenance, under restraints no greater than are needful for 
safety. The plan is to join with time-sentences certain 
labour-sentences — specific tasks to be worked out by the 
convicts. " No rations, or other supplies of any kind, 
whether of food, bedding, clothing, or even education or 
indulgences, to be given gratuitously, but all to be made 
exchangeable, at fixed rates, at the prisoners' own option, 
for marks previously earned ; it being understood, at the 
same time, that only those shall count towards liberation 
which remain over and above all so exchanged ; the pris- 
oners being thus caused to depend for every necessary 
on their own good conduct ; and their prison-offences to 
be in like manner restrained by corresponding fines im- 
posed according to the measures of each." The use of 
marks, which thus play the part of money, was first intro- 
duced by Captain Maconochie in Norfolk Island. De- 
scribing the working of his method, he says — 

" First, it gave me wages and then fines. One gave me willing 
and progressively-skilled labourers, and the other saved me from 
the necessity of imposing brutal and demoralizing punishments. . . . 
My form of money next gave me school fees. I was most anxious 
to encourage education among my men, but as I refused them 
rations gratuitously, so I would not give them schooling either, 

but compelled them to yield marks to acquire it I never 

saw adult schools make such rapid progress My form of 

money next gave me bailbonds in cases of minor or even great 



236 PEIS03T-ETHICS. 

offences ; a period of close imprisonment being wholly or in par 
remitted in consideration of a sufficient number of otber prisoners 
of good character becoming bound, under a penalty, for the im- 
proved conduct of the culprit." 

Even in the establishment of a sick-club and a burial- 
club, Captain Maconochie applied " the inflexible principle 
of giving nothing for nothing." That is to say, here, as 
throughout, he made the discipline of the prisoners as 
much like the discipline of ordinary life as possible ; let 
them experience just such good or evil as naturally flowed 
from their conduct — a principle which he rightly avows as 
the only true one. What were the effects? The extreme 
debasement of Xorfolk-Island convicts was notorious; and 
on a preceding page we have described some of the 
horrible sufferings inflicted on them. Yet, starting with 
these most demoralized of criminals, Captain Maconochie 
obtained highly-favourable results. "In four years," he 
says, " I discharged 920 doubly-convicted men to Sydney, 
of whom only 20, or 2 per cent., had been reconvicted up 
to January, 1845 ;" while, at the same time, the ordinary 
proportion of reconvicted Van Diemen's Land men, other- 
wise trained, was 9 per cent. " Captain Maconochie,' 1 
writes Mr. Harris in his Convicts and Stlttlon, " did more 
for the reformation of these unhappy wretches, and ame- 
lioration of their physical circumstances, than the most 
sanguine practical mind could beforehand have ventured 
to hope." Another witness says — " a reformation far 
greater than has been hitherto effected in any body of 
men by any system, either before or after yours, has taken 
place in them." " As pastor of the island, and for two 
years a magistrate, I can prove that at no period was there 
so little crime," writes the Rev. 13. Naylor. And TL< 
II. Dixon, Chief Superintendent of Convicts in Western 
Australia, who partially introduced the system there in 
1S56, asserts that not onlv was the amount of work done 



REMARKABLE REFORMATION OF CONVICTS. 237 

under it extraordinary, but that " even although the char- 
acters of some of the party were by no means good pre- 
viously (many of them being men whose licenses had 
been revoked in England), yet the transformation which 
in this and all other respects they underwent, was very 
remarkable indeed." If such were the results, when the 
method was imperfectly carried out (for the Government 
all along refused to give any fixed value to the marks as 
a means to liberation) ; what might be expected if its 
motives and restraints were allowed their full influence ? 

Perhaps, however, of all evidence, the most conclusive 
is that afforded by the prison of Valencia. "When, in 
1835, Colonel Montesinos was appointed governor, " the 
average of recommittals was from 30 to 35 per cent, per 
annum — nearly the same that is found in England and other 
countries in Europe ; but such has been the success of his 
method, that for the last three years there has not been even 
one recommittal to it, and for the ten previous years they 
did not, on an average, exceed 1 per cent." And how has 
this marvellous change been brought about ? By dimin- 
ished restraint and industrial discipline. The following 
extracts, taken irregularly from Mr. Hoskins's Spain as it 
is, will prove this : 

"When first the culprit enters the establishment he wears 
chains, but on his application to the commander they are taken off, 
unless he has not conducted himself well." 

" There are a thousand prisoners, and in the whole establish- 
ment I did not see above three or four guardians to keep them in 
order. They say there are only a dozen old soldiers, and not a bar 
or bolt that might not be easily broken — apparently not more fas- 
tenings than in any private house." 

" When a convict enters, he is asked what trade or employment 
he will work at or learn, and above forty are open to him. .... 

There are weavers and spinners of every description; 

blacksmiths, shoemakers, basketmakers, ropemakers, joiners, cab- 



238 PPwISON-ETHICS. 

metmakers, making handsome mahogany drawers ; and they had 
also a printing machine hard at work." 

" The labour of every description for the repair, rebuilding, 
and cleaning the establishment, is supplied by the convicts. They 
were all most respectful in demeanour, and certainly I never saw 
such a good-looking set of prisoners, useful occupations (and other 
considerate treatment) having apparently improved their counte- 
nances And besides a ' garden for exercise planted with 

orange trees,' there was also a poultry yard for their amusement, 
with pheasants and various other kinds of birds ; washing-houses, 
where they wash their clothes ; and a shop, where they can pur- 
chase, if they wish, tobacco and other little comforts out of one- 
fourth of the profits of their labour, which is given to them. 
Another fourth they are entitled to when they leave ; the other 
half goes to the establishment, and often this is sufficient for all 
expenses, without any assistance from the Gov- 

Thus the highest success, regarded by Mr. Iloskins as 
" really a miracle," is achieved by a system most nearly 
conforming to those dictates of absolute morality on which 
we have insisted. The convicts are almost, if not quite, 
self-supporting. They are subject neither to gratuitous 
penalties nor unnecessary restrictions. While made to 
earn their living, they are allowed to purchase such en- 
joyments as consist with their confinement : the avowed 
principle being, in the words of Colonel Montemnos, to 
" give as much latitude to their free agency as can be 
made conformable to discipline at all." Thus they are 
(as we found that equity required they should be) avowed 
to live as satisfactorily as they can, under such restraints 
only as are needful for the safety of their fellow-citizens. 

To us it appears extremely significant that there should 
be so close a correspondence between d priori conclusions, 
and the results of experiments tried without reference to 
such conclusions. On the one hand, neither in the doc- 
trines of pure equity with which we set out, nor in the 
corollaries drawn from them, is there any mention of 



THE MOST EQUITABLE SYSTEM THE BEST. 239 

criminal-reformation : our concern has been solely with 
the rights of citizens and convicts in their mutual rela- 
tions. On the other hand, those who have carried out 
the improved penal systems above described, have had 
almost solely in view the improvement of the offender : 
the just claims of society, and of those who sin against it, 
having been left out of the question. Yet the methods 
which have succeeded so marvellously in decreasing 
criminality, are the methods which most nearly fulfil the 
requirements of abstract justice. May we not, in this, 
see clear proof of harmony with the ordained principles of 
things ? 

That the most equitable system is the one best calcu- 
lated to reform the offender, may indeed be deductively 
shown. The internal experience of every one must prove 
to him, that excessive punishment begets, not penitence, 
but indignation and hatred. So long as an aggressor 
suffers nothing beyond the evils that have naturally re- 
sulted from his misconduct — so long as he perceives that 
his fellow-men have done no more than was needful for 
self-defence — he has no excuse for anger ; and is led to 
contemplate his crime and his punishment as cause and 
effect. But if gratuitous sufferings are inflicted on him, a 
sense of injustice is produced. He regards himself as an 
injured man. He cherishes animosity against all who have 
brought this harsh treatment on him. Glad of any plea 
for forgetting the injury he has done to others, he dwells 
instead on the injury others have done to him. Thus 
nurturing a desired for revenge rather than atonement, he 
reenters society not better but worse ; and if he does not 
commit further crimes, as he often does, he is restrained 
by the lowest of motives — fear. 

Again, this industrial discipline, to which criminals 
subject themselves under a purely equitable system, is the 
discipline they especially need. Speaking generally, we 
11 



240 PEISON-ETHICS. 

are all compelled to work by the necessities of our social 
existence. For most of us this compulsion suffices ; but 
there are some whose aversion to labour cannot be thus 
overcome. Not labouring, and needing sustenance, they 
are compelled to obtain it in illegitimate ways ; and so 
bring on themselves the legal penalties. The criminal 
class being thus in great part recruited from the idle class; 
and the idleness being the source of the criminality; it 
follows that a successful discipline must be one which 
shall cure the idleness. The natural compulsions to labour 
having been eluded, the thing required is that the offender 
shall be so placed that he cannot elude them. And this 
is just what is done under the system we advocate. Its 
action is such that men whose natures are ill-adapted to 
the conditions of social life, bring themselves into a posi- 
tion in which a better adaptation is forced on them by the 
alternative of starvation. 

Lastly, let us not forget that this discipline which 
absolute morality dictates, is salutary, not only because it 
is industrial, but because it is voluntarily industrial. Afl 
we have shown, equity requires that the confined crimi- 
nal shall be left to maintain himself — that is, shall be left 
to work much or little, and to take the consequent pleni- 
tude or hunger. When, therefore, under this sharp but 
natural spur, a prisoner begins to exert himself, he does 
so by his own will. The process which leads him into hab- 
its of labour, is a process by which his self-control is 
strengthened ; and this is what is wanted to make him 
a better citizen. It is to no purpose that you make him 
work by external coercion; for when he is again free, and 
the coercion absent, he will be what he was before. The 
coercion must be an internal one, which he shall carry 
with him out of prison. It avails little that you force him 
to work; he must force himself to work. And this he 
will do, only when placed in those conditions which equity 
dictates. 



DURATION OF RESTRAINT. 241 

Here, then, we find a third order of evidences. Psy- 
chology supports our conclusion. The various experiments 
above detailed, carried out by men who had no political 
or ethical theories to propagate, have established facts 
which we find to be quite concordant, not only with the 
deductions of absolute morality, but also with the deduc- 
tions of mental science. Such a combination of different 
kinds of proof cannot, we think, be resisted. 

And now let us try whether, by pursuing somewhat 
further the method thus far followed, we can see our way 
to the development of certain improved systems that are 
coming into use. 

Equity requires that the restraint of the criminal shall 
be as great as is needful for the safety of society ; but not 
greater. In respect to the quality of the restraint, there is 
little difficulty in interpreting this requirement ; but there 
is considerable difficulty in deciding on the duration of 
the restraint. No obvious mode presents itself of finding 
out how long a transgressor must be held in legal bond- 
age, to insure society against further injury from him. A 
longer period than is necessary, implies an actual injustice 
to the offender. A shorter period than is necessary, im- 
plies a potential injustice to society. And yet, without 
good guidance, one or other of these extremes is almost 
sure to be fallen into. 

At present, the lengths of penal sentences are fixed in 
a, manner that is wholly empirical. For offences defined 
in certain technical ways, Acts of Parliament assign trans- 
portations and imprisonments, having durations not greater 
than so much nor less than so much: these partially- 
determined periods being arbitrarily fixed by legislators, 
under the promptings of moral feeling. Within the 
assigned limits the judge exercises his discretion ; and in 
deciding on the time over which the restraint shall extend. 



242 PEIS0X-ETHIC3. 

he is swayed, partly by the special quality of the offence, 
partly by the circumstances under which it was com- 
mitted, partly by the prisoner's appearance and behaviour, 
partly by the character given to him. And the conclu- 
sion he arrives at after consideration of these data, depends 
very much on his individual nature — his moral bias and 
his theories of human conduct. Thus the mode of fixing 
the lengths of penal restraints, is from beginning to end, 
little else than guessing. How ill this system of guessing 
works, we have abundant proofs. "Justices' justice," 
which illustrates it in its simplest form, has become a bye- 
word ; and the decisions of higher criminal courts con- 
tinually err in the directions of both undue severity and 
undue lenity. Daily do there occur cases of extremely- 
trifling transgression visited with imprisonment of consid- 
erable length ; and daily do there occur cases in which tl a 
punishment is so inadequate, that the offender time after 
time commits new crimes, when time after time discharged 
from custody. 

Now the question is, whether in place of this purely 
empirical method which answers so ill, equity can guide us 
to a method which shall more correctly adjust the period 
of restraint to the requirement in each case. We believe 
it can. We believe that by following out its dictates, we 
shall arrive at a method that is in great measure self-act- 
ing ; and therefore less liable to be vitiated by errors of 
individual judgment or feeling. 

AVe have seen that were the requirements of absolute 
morality consulted, every transgressor would be compelled 
to make restitution or compensation. Throughout a con- 
siderable range of cases, this would itself involve a period 
of restraint varying in proportion to the magnitude of the 
offence. It is true that when the malefactor possessed 
ample means, the making restitution or compensation 
would usually be to him but a slight punishment. But 



FIXING THE DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 213 

though in these comparatively few cases, the regulation 
would fall short of its object, in so far as its effect on the 
criminal was concerned ; yet in the immense majority of 
cases— in all cases of aggressions committed by the poorer 
members of the community — it would act with efficiency. 
It would involve periods of detention that would be longer 
or shorter according as the injury done was greater or 
less ; and according as the transgressor was idle or indus- 
trious. And although between the injury done by an 
offender and his moral turpitude, there is no constant and 
exact proportion ; yet the greatness of the injury done, 
affords, on the average of cases, a better measure of the 
discipline required, than do the votes of Parliamentary 
majorities and the guesses of judges. 

But our guidance does not end here. An endeavour 
still further to do that which is strictly eqnitable, will 
carry us still nearer to a correct adjustment of discipline 
to delinquency. When, having enforced restitution, we 
insist on some adequate guarantee that society shall not 
be again injured, and accept any guarantee that is suffi- 
cient ; we open the way to a self-acting regulator of the 
period of detention. Already our laws are in many cases 
satisfied with securities for future good behaviour. Al- 
ready this system manifestly tends to separate the more 
vicious from the less vicious : seeing that, on the average, 
the difficulty of finding securities is great in proportion as 
the character is bad. And what we propose is, that this 
system, now confined to particular Mnds of offences, shall 
be made general. But let us be more specific. 

A prisoner on his trial calls witnesses to testify to his 
previous character — that is, if his character has been 
tolerably good. The evidence thus given weighs more or 
iess in his favour, according to the respectability of the 
witnesses, their number, and the nature of their testimony. 
Taking into account these several elements, the judge 



244 PRISON-ETHICS. 

forms his conception of the delinquent's general disposi 
tion ; and modifies the length of punishment accordingly. 
Now, may we not fairly say that if the current opinion 
respecting a convict's character could be brought directly 
to bear in qualifying the statutory sentence, instead of 
being brought indirectly to bear, as at present, it would 
be a great improvement ? Clearly the estimate made by 
a judge from such testimony, must be far less accurate 
than the estimate made by the prisoner's neighbours and 
employers. Clearly, too, the opinion expressed by such 
neighbours and employers in the witness-box, is less trust- 
worthy than an opinion which entailed on them serious 
responsibility. The desideratum is, that a prisoner's sen- 
tence shall be qualified by the judgment of those icho have 
had life-long experience of him ; and that the sincerity 
of this judgment shall be tested by their readiness to act 
on it. 

But how is this to be done ? A very simple method 
of doing it has been suggested.* AYhen a convict has 
fulfilled his task of making restitution or compensation, 
let it be possible for one or other of those who have known 
him, to take him out of confinement, on giving adequate 
bail for his good behaviour. Always premising that such 
an arrangement shall be possible only under an official 
permit, to be withheld if the prisoner's conduct has been 
unsatisfactory; and always premising that the person 
who oilers bail shall be of good character and means ; let 
it be competent for such a one to liberate a prisoner by 
being bound on his behalf for a specific sum, or by under- 
taking to make good any injury which he may do to his 
fellow-citizens within a specified period. This will doubt- 
less be thought a startling proposal. We shall, however, 
find good reasons to believe it might be safely acted on — 



CONDITIONAL LD3EEATION OF THE CONVICT. 245 

nay. we shall find facts proving the success of a plan that 
is obviously less safe. 

Under such an arrangement, the liberator and the con- 
vict would usually stand in the relation of employer and 
employed. Those to be thus conditionally released, would 
be ready to work for somewhat lower wages than were 
usual in their occupation ; and those who became bound 
for them, besides having this economy of wages as an in- 
centive, would be in a manner guaranteed by it against 
the risk undertaken. In working for less money, and in 
being under the surveillance of his master, the convict 
would still be undergoing a mitigated discipline. And 
while, on the one hand, he would be put on his good 
behaviour by the consciousness that his master might at 
any time cancel the contract and surrender him back to 
the authorities ; he would, on the other hand, have a 
remedy against his master's harshness, in the option of 
returning to prison, and there maintaining himself for the 
remainder of his term. 

Observe next, that the difficulty of obtaining such con- 
ditional release, would vary with the gravity of the offence 
that had been committed. Men guilty of heinous crimes 
would remain in prison ; for none would dare to become 
responsible for their good behaviour. Any one convicted 
a second time, would remain unbailed for a much longer 
period than before ; seeing that having once inflicted loss 
on some one bound for him, he would not again be so soon 
offered the opportunity of doing the like : only after a long 
period of good behaviour testified to by prison-officers, 
would he be likely to get another chance. Conversely, 
those whose transgressions were not serious,, and who had 
usually been well-conducted, would readily obtain recog- 
nizances ; while to venial offenders this qualified liberation 
vpould come as soon as they had made restitution. More- 
over, when innocent persons had been pronounced guilty, 



246 PEISOX-ETHICS. 

as well as in cases of solitary misdeeds being committed 
by those of really superior natures, the system we have 
described would supply a remedy. From the wrong 
verdicts of the law, and its mistaken estimates of turpi- 
tude, there would be an appeal ; and long-proved worth 
would bring its reward in the mitigation of grievous in- 
justices. 

A further advantage would by implication result, in 
the shape of a long industrial discipline for those who 
most needed it. Speaking generally, diligent and skilful 
workmen, who were on the whole useful members of 
society, would, if their offences were not serious, soon ob- 
tain employers to give bail for them. Whereas, members 
of the especially criminal class — the idle and the dissolute 
— would remain long in confinement ; since, until they 
had been brought by the discipline of self-maintenance 
under restraint, to something like industrial efficiency, 
employers would not be tempted to become responsible 
for them. 

"We should thus have a self-acting test, not only of the 
length of restraint required for social safety, but also of 
that apprenticeship to labour which many convicts need ; 
while there would be supplied a means of rectifying sun- 
dry failures and excesses of our present system. The plan 
would practically amount to an extension of trial by jury. 
At present, the State calls in certain of a prisoner's fellow- 
citizens to decide whether he is guilty or not guilty: the 
judge, under guidance of the penal laws, being left to 
decide what punishment he deserves, if guilty. Under 
the arrangement we have described, the judge's decision 
would admit of modification by a jury of the convict's 
neighbours. And this natural jury, while it would be 
best fitted by previous knowledge of the man, to term 
an opinion, would be rendered cautious by the sense 
of grave responsibility: inasmuch as anv one of its 



FEASIBILITY OF COOT)ITIONAL LIBERATION. 247 

number, who gave a conditional release, would do so at 
his own peril. 

And now mark, that all the evidence forthcoming to 
prove the safety and advantages of the " intermediate sys- 
tem," proves, still more conclusively, the safety and ad- 
vantages of this system which we would substitute for it. 
What we have described, is nothing more than an inter- 
mediate system reduced to a natural instead of an artificial 
form — carried out with natural checks instead of artificial 
checks. If, as Captain Crofton has experimentally shown, 
it is safe to give a prisoner conditional liberation, on the 
strength of good conduct during a certain period of prison- 
discipline ; it is evidently safer to let his conditional liber- 
ation depend not alone on good conduct while under the 
eyes of his jailers, but also on the character he had earned 
during his previous life. If it is safe to act on the judg- 
ments of officials whose experience of a convict's behaviour 
is comparatively limited, and who do not suffer penalties 
when their judgments are mistaken ; then, manifestly, it 
is safer (when such officials can show no reason to the 
contrary) to act on the additional judgment of one who 
has not only had better opportunities of knowing the con- 
vict, but who will be a serious loser, if his judgment proves 
erroneous. Further, that surveillance over each condi- 
tionally-liberated prisoner, which the " intermediate sys- 
tem " exercises, would be still better exercised, when, in- 
stead of going to a strange master in a strange district, 
the prisoner went to some master in his own district ; and 
under such circumstances, it would be easier to get such 
information respecting his after-career as is found desira- 
ble. There is every reason to think that such a method 
would be workable. If, on the recommendation of the 
officers, Captain Crofton's prisoners obtain employers 
" who have on many occasions returned for others, in con- 
sequence of the good conduct of those at first engaged ; " 



2±8 PEISOX-ETHICo. 

still better would be the action of the system when, in 
stead of the employers having " every facility placed at 
their disposal for satisfying themselves as to the antece- 
dents of the convict." they were already familiar with his 
antecedents. 

Finally, let us not overlook the fact, that this course 
is the only one which, while duly consulting social safety, 
is also entirely just to the prisoner. As Ave have shown, 
the restraints imposed on a criminal are warranted by 
absolute equity, only to the extent needful to prevent fur- 
ther agressions on his fellow-men : and when his fellow- 
men impose greater restraints than these, they trespass 
against him. Hence, when a prisoner has worked out his 
(ask of making restitution, and, so far as is possible, un- 
done the wrong he had done; society is, in strict justice, 
bound to accept any arrangement which adequately pro- 
tects its members against further injury. And if, moved 
by the expectation of profit, or other motive, any citizen 
sufficiently substantial and trustworthy, will take on him- 
self to hold society harmless, society must agree to his 
proposal. All it can rightly require is, that the guarantee 
against contingent injury shall be adequate; which, of 
course, it never can be where the contingent injury is of 
the gravest kind. Xo bail could compensate for murder; 
and therefore in this, and other extreme crimes, society 
would rightly refuse any such guarantee, even if offered ; 
which it would be very unlikely to be. 

Such, then, is our code of prison-ethics. Such is the 
ideal which we ought to keep ever in view when modify- 
ing our penal system. Again we say, as we said at the 
outset, that the realization of such an ideal wholly depends 
on the advance of civilization. Let no one carry away 
the impression that we regard all these purely equitable 
regulations as immediately practicable. Though thev 



OBSTACLES TO AMELIOEATION. 24:9 

may be partially carried out, we think it highly improba- 
ble, or rather impossible, that they should at present be 
carried out in full. The number of offenders, the low 
average of enlightenment and morality, the ill-working of 
administrative machinery, and above all, the difficulty of 
obtaining officials of adequate intelligence, good feeling, 
and self-control, are obstacles that must long stand in the 
way of a system so complex as that which morality dic- 
tates. And we here assert, as emphatically as before, 
that the harshest penal system is ethically justified, if it is 
as good as the circumstances of the time permit. How- 
ever great the cruelties it inflicts, yet if a system theoreti- 
cally more equitable would not be a sufficient terror to 
evil-doers, or could not be worked, from lack of officers 
sufficiently judicious, honest, and humane — if less rigorous 
methods would entail a diminution of social security ; then 
the methods in use are extrinsically good, though intrinsi- 
cally bad : they are, as before said, the least wrong, and 
therefore relatively right. 

Nevertheless, as we have endeavoured to prove, it is 
.'mmensely important that, while duly considering the rela- 
tively right, we should keep the absolutely right constant- 
ly in view. True as it is, that in this transition state, our 
conceptions of the ultimately expedient must ever be quali- 
fied by our experience of the proximately expedient ; it is 
not the less true that the proximately expedient cannot 
be determined unless the ultimately expedient is known. 
Before we can say what is as good as the time permits, 
we must say what is abstractedly good ; for the first idea 
involves the last. We must have some fixed standard, 
some invariable measure, some constant clue : otherwise 
we shall inevitably be misled by the suggestions of imme- 
diate policy, and wander away from, the right, rather than 
advance towards it. This conclusion is, we think, fully 
oorne out by the facts we have cited. In other cases, as 



250 ITJSOX-ETHICS. 

well as in the case of penal discipline, the evidence shows 
how terribly we have erred from obstinately refusing to 
consult first principles, and clinging to an unreasoning 
empiricism. Though, during civilization, grievous evils 
have occasionally arisen from attempts suddenly to realize 
absolute rectitude ; yet a greater sum total of evils has 
arisen from the more usual course of ignoring absolute 
rectitude. Age after age, effete institutions have been 
maintained far longer than they would else have been ; 
and equitable arrangements have been needlessly post- 
poned. Is it not time for us to profit by past 
lesrons 9 



VII 



RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY 
POLICY. 



BELIEVERS in the intrinsic virtues of political forms, 
might draw an instructive lesson from the politics of 
our railways. If there needs a conclusive proof that the 
most carefully-framed constitutions are worthless, unless 
they be embodiments of the popular character — if there 
needs a conclusive proof, that governmental arrangements 
in advance of the time will inevitably lapse into congruity 
with the time ; such proof may be found over and over 
again repeated in the current history of joint-stock enter- 
prises. 

As devised by Act of Parliament, the administrations 
of our public companies are almost purely democratic. 
The representative system is carried out in them with 
scarcely a check. Shareholders elect their directors, di- 
rectors their chairman ; there is an annual retirement of a 
certain proportion of the board, giving facilities for super- 
seding them ; and, by this means, the whole ruling body 
may be changed in periods varying from three to five 
years. Yet, not only are the characteristic vices of our 
political state reproduced in each of these mercantile cor- 
porations — some even in an intenser degree — but the very 



252 RAILWAY MOEALS AXD EALLWAY POLICY. 

form of government, while remaining nominally demo- 
cratic, is substantially so remodelled as to become a minia- 
ture of our national constitution. The direction, ceasing 
to fulfil its theory as a deliberative body whose members 
possess like powers, falls under the control of some one 
member of superior cunning, will, or wealth, to whom the 
majority become so subordinate, that the decision on every 
question depends on the course he takes. Proprietors, in- 
stead of constantly exercising their franchise, allow it to 
become on all ordinary occasions a dead letter: retiring 
directors are so habitually reelected without opposition, 
and have so great a power of insuring their own election 
when opposed, that the board becomes practically a close 
body ; and it is only when the mi<government grows ex- 
treme enough to produce a revolutionary agitation among 
the shareholders, that any change can be effected. 

Thus, a mixture of the monarchic, the aristocratic, and 
ihe democratic elements, is repeated with such modifica- 
tions only as the circumstances involve. The modes of 
action, too, are substantially the same : save in this, that 
the copy outruns the original. Threats of resignation, 
which ministries hold out in extreme cases, are commonly 
made by railway-boards to stave oft' a disagreeable inquiry. 
By no means regarding themselves as servants of the 
shareholders, directors rebel against dictation from them; 
and frequently construe any amendment to their propo- 
sals into a vote of want of confidence. At half-yearly 
meetings, disagreeable criticism and objections are met by 
the chairman with the remark, that if the shareholders 
cannot trust his colleagues and himself, they had bettei 
choose others. With most, this assumption of offended 
dignity tells ; and, under the fear that the company's in- 
terests may sutler from any disturbance, measures quite at 
variance with the wishes of the proprietary are allowed to 
be carried. 



CORRUPT ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE COMPANIES. 253 

The parallel holds yet further. If it be true of national 
administrations, that those in office count on the support 
of all public employes / it is not less true of incorporated 
companies, that the directors are greatly aided by their 
officials in their struggles with shareholders. If, in times 
past, there have been ministries who spent public money 
to secure party ends ; there are, in times present, railway- 
boards who use the funds of the shareholders to defeat the 
shareholders. Nay, even in detail, the similarity is main- 
tained. Like their prototype, joint-stock companies have 
their expensive election contests, managed by election 
committees, employing election agents ; they have their 
canvassing with its sundry illegitimate accompaniments ; 
they have their occasional manufacture of fraudulent votes. 
And, as a general result, that class-legislation, which has 
been habitually charged against statesmen, is now habit- 
ually displayed in the proceedings of these trading asso- 
ciations : constituted though they are on purely represent- 
ative principles. 

These last assertions will probably surprise not a few. 
The general public who have little or no direct interest in 
railway matters — who never see a railway-journal, and 
who skip the reports of half-yearly meetings that appear 
in the daily papers — are under the impression that dis- 
honesties akin to those gigantic ones so notorious during 
the mania, are no longer committed. They do not forget 
the doings of stags and stock-jobbers and runaway di- 
rectors. They remember how men-of-straw held shares 
amounting to £100,000, and even £200,000; how numer- 
ous directorates were filled by the same persons — one hav- 
ing a seat at twenty-three boards ; how subscription-con- 
tracts were made up with signatures bought at 105. and 
4s. each, and porters and errand-boys made themselves 
liable for £30,000 and £40,000 a-piece. They can narrate 
how boards kept their books in cipher, made false regis 



254 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

tries, and refrained from recording their proceedings in 
minute-books ; how in one company, half-a-million of capi- 
tal was put down to unreal names ; how in another, direct- 
ors bought for account more shares than they issued, and 
so forced up the price ; and how in many others, they re- 
purchased for the company their own shares, paying them- 
selves with the depositors' money. 

But, though more or less aware of the iniquities that 
have been practised, the generality think of them solely 
as the accompaniments of bubble schemes. More recent 
enterprises they know to have been bond fide ones, mostly 
carried out by old-established companies ; and knowing 
this, they do not suspect that in the getting-up of branch- 
lines and extensions, there are chicaneries near akin to 
those of Capel Court; and quite as disastrous in their ulti- 
mate results. Associating the ideas of wealth and re- 
spectability, and habitually using respectability as synony- 
mous with morality, it seems to them incredible that 
many of the large capitalists and men of station who 
administer railway aflairs, should be guilty of indirectly 
enriching themselves at the expense of their constituents. 
True, they occasionally meet with a law-report disclosing 
some enormous fraud ; or read a Times leader, character- 
izing directorial acts in terms that are held libellous. But 
they regard the cases thus brought to light as entirely ex- 
ceptional ; and under that feeling of loyalty which ever 
idealizes men in authority, they constantly tend towards 
the conviction, if not that directors can do no wrong, yet 
that they are very unlikely to do wrong. 

A history of railway management and railway in- 
trigue, however, would quickly undeceive them. In such 
a history, the doings of projectors and the mysteries of the 
share-market would occupy less space than the analysis oi 
the multiform dishonesties which have boon committed 
since 1S45, and the genesis of that elaborate system of 



DISHONESTIES OF THE MASTAGEES. 255 

tactics by which companies are betrayed into ruinous un- 
dertakings that benefit the few at the cost of the many. 
Such a history would not only have to detail the doings 
of the personage famed for " making things pleasant ; " 
nor would it have merely to add the misdeeds of his col- 
leagues ; but it would have to describe the kindred cor- 
ruptness of other railway administrations. From the pub- 
lished report of an investigation-committee, it would be 
shown how, not many years since, the directors of one of 
our lines allotted among themselves 15,000 new shares 
then at a premium in the market ; how to pay the deposits 
on these shares they used the company's funds ; and how 
one of their number thus accommodated himself in meet- 
ing both deposits and calls to the extent of more than 
£80,000. We should read in it of one railway chairman 
who, with the secretary's connivance, retained shares ex- 
ceeding a quarter of a million in amount, intending to 
claim them as his allotment if they rose to a premium ; 
and who, as they did not do so, left them as unissued 
shares on the hands of the proprietors, to their vast loss. 
We should also read in it of directors who made loans to 
themselves out of the company's floating balances at a 
low rate of interest, when the market rate was high ; and 
who paid themselves larger salaries than those assigned : 
entering the difference in an obscure corner of the ledger 
under the head of "petty disbursements." There would 
be a description of the manoeuvres by which a delinquent 
board, under impending investigation, gets a favourable 
committee nominated — " a whitewashing committee." 
There would be documents showing that the proxies ena- 
bling boards to carry contested measures, have in some 
cases been obtained by garbled statements ; and, again, that 
proxies given for a specific purpose have been used for 
other purposes. One of our companies would be proved 
to have projected a line, serving as a feeder, for which it 



256 RAILWAY MORALS AST> RAILWAY POLICY. 

obtained shareholders by offering a guaranteed dividend, 
which, though understood by the public to be uncondi- 
tional, was really contingent upon a condition not likely 
to be fulfilled. The managers of another company would 
be convicted of having- carried party measures by the aid 
of preference-shares standing in the names of station-mas- 
ters ; and of being aided by the proxies of the secretary's 
children toe young to write. 

That the corruptions here glanced at are not merely 
exceptional evils, but result from some deep-seated vice 
ramifying throughout our system of raihvay-govemment, 
is sufficiently proved by the simple fact, that notwithstand- 
ing the depreciation of railway-dividends produced by the 
extension policy, that policy has been year after year con- 
tinued. Does any tradesman, who, having enlarged his 
shop, finds a proportionate diminution in his rate of profits, 
go on, even under the stimulus of competition, making 
further enlargements at the risk of further diminutions '? 
Does any merchant, however strong his desire to take 
away an opponent's markets, make successive mortg 
on his capital, and pay for each sum thus raised a higher 
interest than he gains by trading with it '? Yet this 
course, so absurd that no one would insult a private indi- 
vidual by asking him to follow it, is the course which rail- 
way-boards, at meeting after meeting, persuade their 
clients to pursue. Since 1S45, when the dividends of our 
leading lines ranged from 8 to 10 per cent., they have, 
notwithstanding an ever-growing traffic, fallen from 10 per 
cent, to 5, from S to 4, -from 9 to 3^ ; and yet the system 
of extensions, leases, and guarantees, notoriously the cause 
of this, has been year by year persevered in. Is there 
not something needing explanation here — something more 
than the world is allowed to see ? If there be any one to 
whom the broad fact of obstinate persistence in unprofita- 
ble expenditure does not alone carry the conviction that 



IMPOSITION UPON THE SHAREHOLDERS. 257 

sinister influences are at work, let him read the seductive 
statements by which shareholders are led to authorize 
new projects, and then compare these with the proved 
results. Let him look at the estimated cost, anticipated 
traffic, and calculated dividend on some proposed branch 
line ; let him observe how the proprietary before whom 
the scheme is laid, are induced to approve it as promising 
a fair return ; and then let him contemplate, in the result- 
ing depreciation of stock, the extent of their loss. Is 
there any avoiding the inference ? Clearly, railway-share- 
holders can never have habitually voted for new under- 
takings which they knew would be injurious to them. 
Every one knows, however, that these new undertakings 
have almost uniformly proved injurious to them. Ob- 
viously, therefore, railway-shareholders have been contin- 
ually deluded by false representations. 

The only possible escape from this conclusion is in the 
belief that boards and their officers have been themselves 
deceived ; and were the discrepancies between promises 
and results occasional only, there would be grounds for 
this lenient interpretation. But to suppose that a railway- 
government should repeatedly make such mistakes, and 
yet gain no wisdom from disastrous experiences — should 
after a dozen disappointments again mislead half-yearly 
meetings by bright anticipations into dark realities, and 
all in good faith — taxes credulity somewhat too far. Even, 
then, were there no demonstrated iniquities to rouse sus- 
picion, we think that the continuous depreciation in the 
value of railway-stock, the determined perseverance ot 
boards in the policy that has produced this depreciation, 
and the proved untruth of the statements by which they 
have induced shareholders to sanction this policy, would 
of themselves suffice to shew the essential viciousness of 
railway-administration. 

That the existing evils, and the causes conspiring to 



258 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

produce them, may be better understood, it will be need 
ful briefly to glance at the mode in which the system of 
extensions grew up. Earliest among the incentives to it 
was a feeling of rivalry. Even while yet their main lines 
were unmade, a contest for supremacy arose between our 
two greatest companies. This presently generated a con- 
firmed antagonism ; and the same impulse which in elec- 
tion contests and the like, has frequently led to the squan- 
dering of a fortune to gain a victory, has largely aided to 
make each of these great rivals submit to repeated sacri- 
fices rather than be beaten. Feuds of like nature are in 
other cases perpetually prompting boards to make aggres- 
sions on each other's territories — every attack on the one 
side leading to a reprisal on the other : and so violent is 
the hostility occasionally produced, that directors might 
be pointed out whose votes are wholly determined by the 
desire to be revenged on their opponents. 

Among the first methods by which leading companies 
sought to strengthen themselves and weaken their com- 
petitors, was the leasing or purchase of subordinate neigh- 
bouring lines. Of course those to whom overtures were 
made, obtained bids from both sides ; and it naturally 
resulted that the first sales thus effected, being at prices far 
above the real values, brought great profits to the sellers. 
What resulted ? A few recurrences of this proceeding, 
made it clear to quick-witted speculators, that construct- 
ing lines so circumstanced as to be bid for by competing 
companies, would be a lucrative policy. Shareholders 
who had once pocketed these large and easily-made gains, 
were eager to repeat the process ; and cast about for dis- 
tricts in which it might be done. Even the directors of 
the companies by whom these high prices were given, 
were under the temptation to aid in this ; for it was mani- 
fest to them that by obtaining a larger interest in any 
Buch new undertaking than they possessed in the pur- 



GETTING UP SUBSIDIARY LINES. 259 

chasing company, and by using their influence in the pur- 
chasing company to obtain a good price or guarantee for 
the new undertaking, a great advantage would be gained : 
and that this motive has been largely operative, railway 
history abundantly proves. 

Once commenced, sundry other influences conspired to 
stimulate this making of feeders and extensions. The non- 
closure of capital-accounts rendered possible the " cook- 
ing" of dividends, which was at one period carried to a 
great extent. Under various incentives, speculative and 
other, expenditure that should have been charged against 
revenue was charged against capital ; works and rolling 
stock were allowed to go unrepaired, or insufficient addi- 
tions made to them, by which means the current expenses 
were rendered delusively small ; long-credit agreements 
with contractors permitted sundry disbursements that had 
been virtually made, to be kept out of the accounts ; and 
thus the net returns were made to appear much greater 
than they really were. Naturally the new undertakings 
put before the moneyed world by conrpanies whose stock 
and dividends had been thus artificially raised, were re- 
ceived with proportionate favour. Under the prestige of 
their parentage their shares came out at high premiums, 
bringing large profits to the projectors. The hint was 
soon taken ; and it presently became an established pol- 
icy, under the auspices of a prosperity either real or mock, 
to get up these subsidiary lines — " calves," as they were 
called in the slang of the initiated — and to traffic in the 
premiums their shares commanded. 

Meanwhile had been developing a secondary set of 
influences which also contributed to foster unwise enter- 
prises ; namely, the business interests of the lawyers, 
engineers, contractors, and others directly or indirectly 
employed in railway construction. The methods of pro- 
jecting and carrying new schemes, could not fail, in the 



260 KAILWAY MOEALS AXD RAILWAY POLICY. 

course of years, to become familiar to all persons con- 
cerned ; and there could not fail to grow up among them 
a concerted system of tactics calculated to achieve their 
common end. Thus, partly from the jealousy of rival 
boards, partly from the avarice of shareholders in pur- 
chased lines, partly from the dishonest schemings of direct- 
ors, partly from the manoeuvres of those whose business 
it is to carry out the projects legally authorized, partly, 
and perhaps mainly, from the delusive appearance of pros- 
perity maintained by many established companies, there 
came the wild speculations of 1844 and 1845. The conse- 
quent disasters, while they pretty well destroyed the last 
of these incentives, left the rest much as they were. 
Though the painfully-undeceived public have ceased to 
aid as they once did, the various private interests that had 
grown up have since been working together as before — 
have developed their systems of cooperation into still 
more complex and subtle forms ; and are even now daily 
thrusting unfortunate shareholders into losing undertak- 
ings. 

Before proceeding to analyze the exiting state of 
things, however, we would have it clearly understood that 
we do not suppose those implicated to be on the av- 
morally lower than the community at large. Men taken 
at random from any class, would, in all probability, behave 
much in the same way when placed in like positions. 
There are unquestionably directors grossly dishonest. 
Unquestionably also there are others whose standard of 
honour is far higher than that of most persons. And for 
the remainder, they are, we doubt not, as good as the 
mass. Of the engineers, parliamentary agents, lav 
contractors, and various others concerned, it may be ad- 
mitted that though daily custom has induced laxity of 
principle, yet they would be harshly judged were the 
transactions that may be recorded against them, used as 



INFERIORITY OF 1HE CORPORATE CONSCIENCE. 261 

tests. Those who do not see how in these involved af- 
fairs, the most inequitable results may be wrought out by 
men not correspondingly flagitious, will readily do so on 
considering all the conditions. 

In the first place, there is the familiar fact that the cor- 
porate conscience is ever inferior to the individual con- 
science — that a body of men will commit as a joint act, 
that which every individual of them would shrink from, 
did he feel personally responsible. And it may be re- 
marked that not only is the conduct of a corporate body 
thus comparatively lax, but also the conduct towards one. 
There is ever a more or less distinct perception, that a 
broad-backed company scarcely feels what would be ruin 
ous to a private person ; and this perception is in constant 
operation on all railway-boards and their employes, as well 
as on all contractors, landowners, and others concerned ; 
leading them to show a graspingness and want of princi- 
ple foreign to their general behaviour. Again, the indi- 
rectness and remoteness of the evils produced, greatly 
weaken the restraints on wrong-doing. Men's actions are 
proximately produced by mental representations of the 
results to be anticipated ; and the decisions come to, 
largely depend on the vividness with which these results 
can be imagined. A consequence, good or bad, that is 
immediate and clearly apprehended, influences conduct far 
more potently than a consequence that has to be traced 
through a long chain of causation, and, as eventually 
reached, is not a particular and readily conceivable one, 
but a general and vaguely conceivable one. Hence, in 
railway affairs, a questionable share-transaction, an exor- 
bitant charge, a proceeding which brings great individual 
advantage without apparently injuring any one, but which, 
even if analyzed in its ultimate results, can but very cir 
cuitously affect unknown persons living no one knows 
where, may be brought home to men who, could the re* 



262 PvAlLWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

suits be embodied before tliem, would be shocked at the 
cruel injustices they had committed — men who in their 
private business, where the results can be thus embodied, 
are sufficiently equitable. 

Further, it requires to be noted that most of these 
great delinquencies are wrought out, not by the extreme 
dishonesty of any one man or group of men, but by the 
combined self-interest of many men and groups of men, 
whose minor delinquencies are cumulative. Much as a 
story which, passing from mouth to mouth, and receiving 
a slight exaggeration at each repetition, comes round to 
the original narrator in a form scarcely to be recognized ; 
so, by a little improper influence on the part of landown- 
ers, a little favouritism on the part of members of Parlia- 
ment, a little intriguing of lawyers, a little manoeuvring 
by contractors and engineers, a little self-seeking on the 
part of directors, a little under-statement of estimates and 
over-statement of traffic, a little magnifying of the evils 
to be avoided and the benefits to be gained — it happens 
that shareholders are betrayed into ruinous undertakings 
by grossly untrue representations, without any one being 
guilty of more than a small portion of the fraud. Bearing 
in mind then, the comparative laxity of the corporate con- 
science ; the diffusion and remoteness of the evils which 
malpractices produce; and the composite- origin of these 
malpractices ; it becomes possible to understand how, in 
railway affairs, gigantic dishonesties can be perpet: 
by men, who, on the average, are little if at all below the 
generality in moral character. 

AVith this preliminary mitigation we proceed to detail 
the various illegitimate agencies by which these seemingly 
insane extensions and this continual squandering of share- 
holders' property are brought about. 

Conspicuous among these is the self-interest of land- 



GREED OF LAND-OWNERS. 263 

owners. Once the greatest obstacles to railway enter- 
prise, owners of estates have of late years been among its 
chief promoters. Since the Liverpool and Manchester 
line was first defeated by landed opposition, and succeeded 
with its second bill only by keeping out of sight of all 
mansions, and avoiding the game preserves — since the 
time when the London and Birmingham Company, after 
seeing their project thrown out by a committee of peers 
who ignored the evidence, had to " conciliate " their an- 
tagonists by raising the estimate for land from £250,000 
to £750,000 — since the time when Parliamentary counsel 
bolstered up a groundless resistance by the flimsiest and 
absurdest excuses, even to reproaching engineers with 
having " trodden down the corn of widows " and " de- 
stroyed the strawberry-beds of gardeners " — since then, a 
marked change of policy has taken place. Nor was it in 
human nature that it should be otherwise. When it be- 
came known that railway companies commonly paid for 
" land and compensation," sums varying from £4,000 to 
£8,000 per mile ; that men were indemnified for supposed 
injury to their property, by sums so inordinate that the 
greater part has been known to be returned by the heir as 
conscience-money; that in one case £120,000 was given 
for land said to be worth but £5,000 — when it was bruited 
abroad that large bonuses in the shape of preference shares 
and the like, were granted to buy off opposition — when it 
came to be an established fact that estates are greatly en- 
hanced in value by the proximity of railways ; it is not 
surprising that country gentlemen should have become 
active supporters of schemes to which they were once the 
bitterest enemies. On considering the many temptations, 
we shall see nothing wonderful in the fact that in 1845 
they were zealous provisional committee-men ; nor in the 
fact that their influence as promoters enabled them to get 
large sums for their own acres ; nor in the fact that they 
12 



264 RAIL WAT MOEALS AXD E AIL WAT POLICT. 

committed various acts sufficiently reprehensible from any 
but their own point of view. 

If we are told of squires soliciting interviews with the 
engineer of a projected railway; prompting him to take 
their side of the country; promising support if he did. 
and threatening opposition if he did not ; dictating the 
course to be followed through their domains, and hinting 
that a good price would be expected ; we are simply told 
of the special modes in which certain private interests 
show themselves. If we hear of an extensive landowner 
using his influence as chairman of a board of directors, to 
project a branch running for many miles through his own 
estate, and putting his company to the cost of a parlia- 
mentary contest to carry this line ; we hear only of that 
which was likely to occur under such circumstances. If 
we find now before the public, a line proposed by a large 
capitalist, serving among other ends to effect desirable 
communications with his property, and the estimates for 
which line, though considered by the engineering world 
insufficient, are alleged by him to be ample ; we have but 
a marked case of the distorted representations which un- 
der such conditions self-interest is sure to engender. If 
we discover of this or that scheme, that it was got up by 
the local nobility and gentry — that they employed to 
make the survey a third-rate engineer, who was ready in 
anticipation of future benefit to do this for his bare ex- 
penses — that principals and agent wearied the dii\ 
of an adjacent trunk-line to take up their project ; threat- 
ened that if they did not their great rival would ; alarmed 
them into concession ; asked for a contribution to their 
expenses ; and would have gained all these points but for 
shareholders 1 resistance — we do but discover the organized 
tactics which in process of time naturally grow up under 
such stimuli. It is not that these facts are particularly 
remarkable. From the cross instance of the landowner 



PRESSURE OF THE LANDED INTEREST. 265 

who asked £8,000 for that which he eventually accepted 
£80 for, down to the every-day instances of influence used 
to get railway accommodation for the neighbourhood, the 
acts of the landed class are simply manifestations of the 
average character acting under special conditions. All 
that it now behooves us to notice, is, that we have here a 
large and powerful body whose interests are ever pressing 
on railway extension, irrespective of its intrinsic propriety. 
The great change in the attitude of the Legislature 
towards railways, from "the extreme of determined rejec- 
tion or dilatory acquiescence, to the opposite extreme of 
unlimited concession," was simultaneous with the change 
above described. It could not well fail to be so. Supply- 
ing, as the landowning community does, so large a portion 
of both Houses of Parliament, it necessarily follows that 
the play of private interests seen in the first, repeats itself 
in the last under modified forms, and complicated by other 
influences. Remembering the extent to which legislators 
were themselves involved in the speculations of the mania, 
it is scarcely probable that they should since have been 
free from personal bias. A return proved, that in 1845 
there were 157 members of Parliament whose names were 
on the registers of new companies for sums varying from 
£291,000 downwards. The supporters of new projects 
boasted of the number of votes they could command in 
the House. Members were personally canvassed, and 
peers were solicited. It was publicly complained in the 
upper chamber, that " it was nearly impossible to bring 
together a jury, some members of which were not inter- 
ested in the railway they were about to assess." Doubt- 
less this state of things was in a great degree exceptional ; 
and there has since been not only a diminution of the 
temptations, but a marked increase of equitable feeling. 
Still, it is not to be expected that private interests should 
cease to aot. It is not to be exjDected that a landowner 



266 RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY TOLICY. 

who, out of Parliament, exerts himself to get a railway 
for his district, should, when in Parliament, not employ 
the power his new position gives him to the same end. It 
is not to be expected that the accumulation of such indi- 
vidual actions should leave the legislative policy un- 
changed. Hence the fact, that the influence once used to 
throw out railway bills is now used to carry them. Hence 
the fact, that railway committees no longer require a good 
traffic case to be made out in justification of the powers 
asked. Hence the fact, that the directors and chairmen 
of boards haying Mats in the House of Commons, are 
induced to pledge their companies to carry out extensions. 

AYc could name a member of Parliament, who, having 
bought an estate fitly situated, offered to an engine* r, 
in Parliament, the making of a railway running through 
it; and having obtained the .Vet (in doing which the influ- 
ence of himself and his friend were of course useful), pit- 
ted three railway companies against each other for the 
purchase of it. We could name another member of Par- 
liament, who, having projected, and obtained powers for, 
an extension through his property, induced the dire 
of the main line, with whom he had great influence, t<» 
subscribe half the capital for his extension, to work it for 
fifty per cent, of the gross receipts, and to give up all traf- 
fic brought by it on to the main line until he received four 
per cent, on his capital; which was tantamount to a four 
per cent, guarantee. 

But it is not only, nor indeed mainly, from directly 
personal motives that legislators have of late years unduly 
fostered railway enterprises. Indirect motives of various 
kinds have been largely operative. The wish to sal 
constituents has been one. Inhabitants of unaccommo- 
dated districts, are naturally urgent with their representa- 
tives to help them to a line. Such representatives are not 
[infrequently conscious that their next elections may po» 



SELFISH INTERESTS INVOLVED. 267 

sibly turn upon their successful response to tins appeal. 
Even when there is no popular pressure there is the press- 
ure of their leading political supporters — of large land- 
holders whom it will not do to neglect ; of the magis- 
tracy, with whom it is needful to be on good terms ; of 
local lawyers, important as electioneering friends, to whom a 
railway always brings business. Thus, without having any 
immediately private ends, members of Parliament are often 
almost coerced into pressing forward schemes which, from 
a national or from a shareholder's point of view, are very 
unwise ones. Then there comes the still less direct stim- 
uli. Where neither personal nor political ends are to be 
gained, there are still the interests of a relative to be sub- 
served; or, if not those of a relative, still those of a 
friend. And where there is no decided impulse to the 
contrary, these motives, of course, have their weight. 
Moreover, it requires in fairness to be said, that possessed 
as most members of Parliament are, with the belief that 
all railway-making is nationally beneficial, there exist in 
their minds few or no reasons for resisting the influences 
brought to bear on them. True, shareholders may be in- 
jured ; but that is their own aifair : — the public will be 
better served ; constituents will be satisfied ; friends will 
be pleased ; perhaps personal ends gained : and under 
some or all of these incentives affirmative votes are read- 
ily given. Thus, from the Legislature also, there has of 
late years proceeded a factitious stimulus to railway ex 
tensions. 

From Parliament to Parliamentary agents, and the 
general body of lawyers concerned in railway enterprise 
is a ready transition. With these, the getting up and car- 
rying of new lines and branches is a matter of business. 
Whoever studies the process of obtaining a railway Act. 
or considers the number of legal transactions involved in 
the execution of railway works, or notes the large sums 



208 KAIL WAY MOEALS AXD RAILWAY POLICY. 

that figure in half-yearly reports under the head of " law 
charges;" will at once see how strong are the temptations 
which a new project holds out to solicitors, conveyancers, 
and counsel. It has been shown that in past years, par- 
liamentary expenses have varied from £G50 to £3,000 per 
mile ; of which a large proportion has gone iuto the pock- 
ets of the profession. In one contest, £57,000 was spent 
among six counsel and twenty solicitors. At a late meet- 
ing of one of our companies it was pointed out, that the 
sum expended in legal and parliamentary expenses during 
nine years, had reached £480,000 ; or had aver 
£53,500 a-year. With these and scores of like facts be- 
fore them, it would indeed be strange did not so acute a 
body of men as lawyers use vigorous efforts and sagacious 
devices to promote fresh enterprises. Indeed, ii* we look 
back at the proceedings of 1845, we shall suspect, not only 
that lawyers are still the active promoters of fresh enter- 
prises, but often the originators of them. Most people 
have heard how in those excited times the projects daily 
announced were frequently set afloat by local solicitors — 
how these looked over maps to see where plausible lines 
could be sketched out — how they canvassed the local gen- 
try to obtain provisional committeemen — how tin 
with engineers to make trial surveys — how, under the 
wild hopes of the day, they found little difficulty in form- 
ing companies — and how most of them managed to get as 
far as the Committee on Standing Orders, if no farther. 

Remembering all this, and remembering that those 
who were successful are not likely to have forgotten their 
cunning, but rather to have yearly exercised and inert 
it, we may naturally expect to find railway lawyers among 
the most influential of the many parties conspiring to urge 
railway proprietaries into disastrous undertakings : and 
we shall not be deceived. To a great extent they are in 
'eague with engineers. From the proposal to the comple- 



EVIL INFLUENCE OF RAILWAY LAWYERS. 269 

tion of a new line, the lawyer and the engineer work to- 
gether ; and their interests are throughout identical. "While 
the one makes the survey, the other prepares the "book 
of reference. The parish plans which the one gets ready, 
the other deposits. The notices to owners and occupiers 
which the one fills in, the other serves upon those con- 
cerned. Throughout, there is continual consultation be- 
tween them as to the dealing with local opposition and 
the obtainment of local support. In the getting up of 
their case for Parliament, they necessarily act in concert. 
While, before Committee, the one gets his ten guineas per 
day for attending to give evidence ; the other makes prof- 
its on all the complicated transactions which carrying a 
bill involves. During the execution of the works they 
are in frequent correspondence ; and alike profit by any 
expansion of the undertaking. Thus there naturally arises 
in each, the perception that in aiding the other he is aid- 
ing himself: and gradually, as, in course of years, the 
proceedings come to be often repeated, and a perfect famil- 
iarity with railway politics gained, there grows up a well- 
organized system of cooperation between them — a system 
rendered the more efficient by the wealth and influence 
which each has year by year accumulated. 

Among the manoeuvres employed by railway solicitors 
thus established and thus helped, not the least remarka- 
ble is that of getting their own nominees elected as direct- 
ors. Startling though it may seem, it is yet a fact, which 
we state on good authority, that there are puppet-direct- 
ors who vote for this or that at the instigation of the 
company's lawyer, whose creatures they are. The obtain- 
ment of such tools is by no means difficult. Vacancies are 
about to occur in the directorate. Almost always there are 
sundry men over whom a solicitor, conducting the extensive 
law-business of a railway, has considerable power: not only 
connections and friends, but clients and persons to whom 



270 EAILWAY MOEALS ANT) EAILWAY POLICY. 

in his legal capacity he can do great benefit or great injury 
He selects the most suitable of these; giving the pref- 
erence, if other things are equal, to one living in the coun- 
try near the line. On opening the matter to him, he points 
out the sundry advantages attendant on a directors dosi- 
tion — the free pass and the many facilities it gives ; the 
annual £100 or so which the office brings; the honour and 
influence accruing ; the opportunities for profitable invest- 
ment that are likely to occur ; and so forth. Should igno- 
rance of railway affairs be raised as an objection, the 
tempter, in whose eyes this ignorance is a chief recom- 
mendation, replies that he shall always be at hand to 
guide his votes. Should non-possession of a due amount 
of the company's stock be ^pleaded, the tempter readily 
meets the difficulty by offering himself to furnish the 
needful qualification. Thus incited and flattered, and per- 
haps conscious that it would be dangerous to refuse, the 
intended puppet allows himself to be put in nomination ; 
and as it is the general habit of half-yearly meetings, un- 
less under great indignation, to elect any one proposed to 
them by those in authority, the nomination is successful. 
On subsequent occasions this proceeding can, of course, be 
repeated ; and thus the company's legal agent and those 
leagued with him, may command sufficient votes to turn 
the scale in their own favour. 

Then, to the personal interest and power of the head 
solicitor, have to be added those of the local ones, with 
whom he is in constant business intercourse. They, too, 
profit by new undertakings ; they, therefore, are commonly 
urgent in pressing them forwards. Acting in cooperation 
witli their chief, they form a local staff of great influence. 
They are active canvassers ; they stimulate and concen- 
trate the feeling of their districts ; they encourage rivalry 
with other lines ; they alarm local shareholders with ru- 
mours of threatened competition. "When the question o( 



MORALITY OF THE ENGINEERS. 271 

extension or non-extension comes to a division, they col- 
lect proxies for the extension party. They bring pressure 
to bear on their shareholding clients and relatives. Nay, 
so deep an interest do they feel in the decision, as occa- 
sionally to manufacture votes with the view of influencing 
it. We have before us the case of a local solicitor,, who, 
before the special meeting called to adopt or reject a con- 
templated branch, transferred portions of his own shares 
into the names of sundry members of his family, and so 
multiplied his seventeen votes into forty-one ; all of which 
he recorded for the adoption of his new scheme. 

The morality of railway engineers is not greatly above 
that of railway lawyers. The gossip of Great George 
Street is fertile in discreditable revelations. It tells how 
So-and-so, like others before him, testified to estimates 
which he well knew were insufficient. It makes jocose 
allusion to this man as being employed to do his senior's 
" dirty work" — his hard-swearing ; and narrates of the 
other, that when giving evidence before committee, he 
was told by counsel that he was not to be believed even 
on his knees. It explains how cheaply the projector of a 
certain line executed the parliamentary survey, by em- 
ploying on it part of the staff in the pay of another com- 
pany to which he was engineer. Now it alludes to the 
suspicion attaching to a certain member of the fraternity 
from his having let a permanent-way contract, for a term 
of years, at an extravagant sum per mile. Again it ru- 
mours the great profits which some of the leaders of the 
profession made in 1845, by charging for the use of their 
names at so much the prospectus ; even up to a thousand 
guineas. And then, it enlarges upon the important ad- 
vantages possessed by engineers who have seats in the 
House of Commons. 

Thus lax as is the ethical code of engineers, and greatly 
as they are interested in railway enterprise, it is to be ex- 



272 RAILWAY MORALS AXD RAILWAY POLICY. 

pected that they should be active and not very scrupu- 
lous promoters of it. To illustrate the vigour and skill 
with which they further new undertakings, a few facts 
may be cited. Xot far from London, and lying between 
two lines of railway, is an estate that has been purchased 
by one of our engineers. He has since obtained Acts 
for branches to both of the adjacent lines. One of these 
branches he has leased to the company whose line it joins; 
and he has tried to do the like with the other, but as yet 
without success. Even as it is, however, he is considered 
to have doubled the value of his property. Again, an 
engineer of celebrity once very nearly succeeded in smug- 
gling through Parliament, in the bill for a proposed rail- 
way, a clause extending the limits of deviation, through a 
certain district, to several miles on each side of the line — 
the usual limits being but iive chains on each side ; and 
the attempt is accounted for by the met, that this engi- 
neer possessed mines in this district. To press forward 
extensions by the companies with which they are con- 
nected, they occasionally go to great lengths. Xot long 
since, at a half-yearly meeting, certain projects which the 
proprietary had already once rejected, were again brought 
forward by two engineers who attended in their capacity 
of shareholders. Though known to be personally inter- 
ested, one of them moved and the other seconded, that 
some new proposals from the promoters of these schemes 
be considered without delay by the directors. The mo- 
tion was carried ; the directors approved the proposals ; 
and again, the proprietors negatived them. A third time 
a like effort was made ; 'a third time a conflict arose ; and 
within a few days of the special meeting at which the di- 
vision was to take place, one of these engineers circulated 
imiong the shareholders a pamphlet denying the allega- 
tions of the dissentient party and making counter-state- 
ments which it was then too late to meet — nay, he did 



INFLUENCE OF THE CONTRACTORS. 273 

more ; lie employed agents to canvass the shareholders for 
proxies in support of the new undertaking ; and was obliged 
to confess as much when charged with it at the meeting. 

Turn we now to contractors. Railway enterprise has 
given to this class of men a gigantic development, not 
only in respect of numbers, but in respect of the vast 
wealth to which some of them have attained. Originally, 
half a dozen miles of earthwork, fencing, and bridges, 
was as much as any single contractor undertook. Of late 
years, however, it has become common for one man to en- 
gage to construct an entire railway ; and deliver it over 
to the company in a fit condition for opening. Great cap- 
ital is necessarily required for this. Great profits are 
made by it. And the fortunes accumulated in course of 
time have been such, that sundry contractors are named 
as being each able to make a railway at his own cost. 
But they are as insatiate as millionnaires in general ; and 
so long as they continue in business at all, are, in some 
sort, forced to provide new undertakings to keep their 
plant employed. As may be imagined, enormous stocks 
of working materials are needed: many hundreds of 
earth-wagons and of horses; many miles of temporary 
rails and sleepers; some half-dozen locomotive engines, 
and several fixed ones ; innumerable tools ; besides vast 
stores of timber, bricks, stone, rails, and other constitu- 
ents of permanent works, that have been bought on spec- 
ulation. To keep the capital thus invested, and also a 
large staff of employ&s, standing idle, entails loss, partly 
negative, partly positive. The great contractor, therefore, 
is alike under a pressing stimulus to get fresh work, and 
enabled by his wealth to do this. Hence the not un- 
frequent inversion of the old arrangement under which 
companies and engineers employed contractors, into an 
arrangement under which contractors employ engineers 
and form companies. 



274 RAILWAY MOEALS AKD E AIL WAY POLICY. 

Many recent undertakings have been thus set on foot. 
The most gigantic project which private enterprise has 
yet dared — a project of which, unfortunately, there is now 
no hope — originated with a distinguished contracting firm. 
In some cases, as in this chief one, this mode of procedure 
may, perhaps, be advantageous ; but in a far greater pro- 
portion of cases its results are disastrous. Interested in 
promoting railway extensions, even in a greater degree 
than engineers and lawyers, contractors frequently coop- 
erate with these, either as agents or as coadjutors. Lines 
are fostered into being, which it is known from the begin- 
ning, will not pay. Of late, it has become common for 
landowners, merchants, and others personally inter* i 
who, under the belief that their indirect gains will com- 
pensate for their meagre dividends, have themselves r 
part of the capital for a local railway, but cannot raise 
the rest — it has become common for such to make an 
agreement with a wealthy contractor to construct the 
line, taking in part payment a portion of the shares, 
amounting to perhaps a third of the whole, and to charge 
for his work according to a schedule of prices to be there- 
alter settled between himself and the engineer. Bj this 
last clause the contractor renders himself secure. It would 
never answer his purpose to take part payment in shares 
likely to return some £2 per cent., unless he compensated 
himself by unusually high profits ; and tnis subsequent 
settlement of prices with one whose interests, like his 
own, are wrapped up in the prosecution of the undertak- 
ing, ensures him high profits. Meanwhile, the facts that 
all the capital has been subscribed and the line contracted 
for, unduly raise the public estimate of the scheme; the 
shares are quoted at much above their true worth; un- 
wary persons buy; the contractor from time to time parts 
with his moiety at fair prices; and the new shareholders 
ultimately find themselves part owners of a railway which, 



DISHONEST SCHEMES OF CONTRACTOKS. 275 

unprofitable as it originally promised to be, bad been 
made yet more unprofitable by expensiveness of construc- 
tion. 

Nor are these the only cases in which contractors gain 
after this fashion. They do the like with undertakings of 
their own projection. To obtain Acts for these, they sign 
the subscription-contracts for large amounts ; knowing that 
in the way above described, they can always make it an- 
swer to do this. So general had the practice latterly be- 
come, as to attract the attention of committees. As was 
remarked by a personage noted for his complicity in these 
transactions — "Committees are getting too knowing ; they 
won't stand that dodge now." Nevertheless, the thing is 
still done under a disguised form. Though contractors no 
longer enter their own names on subscription lists for 
thousands of shares; yet they effect the same end by 
making nominal holders of their foremen and others : 
themselves being the real ones. 

Of directorial misdoings some samples have already 
been referred to; and more might be added. Besides 
those arising from directly personal aims, there are sundry 
others. One of these is the still-increasing community 
between railway boards and the House of Commons. 
There are eighty-one directors sitting in Parliament ; and 
though many of these take little or no part in the affairs 
of their respective railways, many of them are the most 
active members of the boards to which they belong. "We 
have but to look back a few years, and mark the unanim- 
ity with which companies adopted the policy of getting 
themselves represented in the Legislature, to see that the 
furtherance of their respective interests — especially in cases 
of competition — was the incentive. How well this policy 
is understood among the initiated, may be judged from 
the fact, that gentlemen are now in some cases elected on 
boards, simply because they are members of Parliament. 



276 EAILWAY MOEALS AND EAILWAY POLICY. 

Of course this implies that railway legislation is affected 
by a complicated play of private influences; and tnao 
these influences generally work towards the facilitation of 
new enterprises, is tolerably obvious. It naturally hap 
pens that directors whose companies are not opposed, ex- 
change good offices. It naturally happens that they can 
more or less smooth the way of their annual batch of new 
bills through committees. 

Moreover, directors sitting in the Ilcuse of Commons 
not only facilitate the passing of the schemes in which 
they are interested, but are solicited to undertake further 
schemes by those around then?. It is a very common- 
sense conclusion that representatives of small towns and 
country districts needing railway accommodation, who are 
daily thrown in contact with the chairman of a company 
capable of giving this accommodation, will not neglect 
the opportunity of furthering their ends. It is a very 
common-sense conclusion that by hospitalities, by favours, 
by flattery, by the many means used to bias men, they 
will seek to obtain his assistance. And it is an equally 
common-sense conclusion that in many cases they will 
succeed — that by some complication of persuasion-: and 
temptations they will swerve him from his calmer judg- 
ment; and so introduce into the company he represents, 
influences at variance with its welfare. 

Under some motives, however — whether those of direct 
self-interest, of private favour, or of antagonistic feeling, 
need not here be discussed — it is certain that directors are 
constantly committing their constituents to unwise enter- 
prises ; and that they frequently employ unjustifiable means 
for either eluding or overcoming their opposition. Share- 
holders occasionally find that their directors have given to 
Parliament pledges of extension much exceeding v> hat 
they were authorized to give ; and they are then persuaded 
that they are bound to endorse the promises made for 



HOW SHAREHOLDERS ARE IMPOSED UPON. 277 

them by their agents. In some cases, among the mislead- 
ing statements laid before shareholders to obtain their 
consent to a new project, will be found an abstract of the 
earnings of a previously-executed branch or feeder to 
which the proposed one bears some analogy. These earn- 
ings are shown (not always without " cooking ") to be tol- 
erably good and improving ; and it is argued that the new 
project, having like prospects, offers a fair investment. 
Meanwhile, it is not stated that the capital for this pre- 
viously-executed branch or feeder was raised on debentures 
or by guaranteed shares at a higher rate of interest than 
the dividend pays ; it is not stated that as the capital for 
this further undertaking will be raised on like terms, the 
annual interest on debt will swallow up more than the 
annual revenue: and thus unsuspecting shareholders — 
some unacquainted with the company's antecedents, some 
unable to understand its complicated accounts — give their 
proxies, or raise their hands, for new works which will tell 
with disastrous effect on their future dividends. In pursuit 
of their ends, directors will from time to time go directly 
in the teeth of established regulations. Where it has been 
made a rule that proxies shall be issued only by order of a 
meeting of the proprietors, they will yet issue them with- 
out any such order, when by so doing they can steal a 
march on dissentients. If it suits their purpose, they will 
occasionally bring forward most important measures with- 
out due notice. In stating the amount of the company's 
stock which has voted with them on a division, they have 
been known to include thousands of shares on which a 
small sum only was paid up, counting them as though 
fully paid up. 

To complete the sketch, something must be said on the 
management of board meetings and meetings of share- 
holders. For the first — their decisions are affected by va- 
rious manoeuvres. Of course, on fit occasions, there is a 



278 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

whipping-up of those favourable to any project which it 
is desired to carry. Were this all, there would be little 
to complain of; but something more than this is done. 
There are boards in which it is the practice to defeat op- 
position by stratagem. The extension party having sum- 
moned their forces for the occasion, and having entered on 
the minutes of business a notice worded with the requisite 
vagueness, shape their proceedings according to the char- 
acter of the meeting. Should their antagonists muster 
more strongly than was expected, this vaguely-worded 
notice serves simply to introduce some general statement 
or further information concerning the project named in it ; 
and the matter is passed over as though nothing more had 
been meant. On the contrary, should the proportion of 
the two sides be more favourable, the notice becomes the 
basis of a definite motion committing the board to some 
important procedure. If due precautions have been taken, 
the motion is passed; and once passed, those who, if pres- 
ent, would have resisted it, have no remedy; for in rail- 
way government there is no " second reading," much less 
a third. So determined and so unscrupulous are tl 
forts sometimes made by the stronger party to overcome 
and silence their antagonists, that when a contested meas- 
ure, carried by them at the board, lias to go before a gen- 
eral meeting for confirmation, they have even been known 
to pass a resolution that their dissentient colleagues shall 
not address the proprietary! 

How, at half-yearly and special meetings, shareholders 
should be so readily led by boards, even after repeated ex- 
perience of their untrustworthiness, seems at first sight dif- 
ficult to understand. The mystery disappears, however, on 
inquiry. Very frequently, contested measures are carried 
quite against the sense of the meetings before which they 
are laid, by means of the large number of proxies pre- 
viously collected by the directors. These proxies are 



FEEBLE INFLUENCE OF SHAREHOLDERS. 279 

obtained mostly from proprietors scattered everywhere 
throughout the kingdom, who are very generally weak 
enough to sign the first document sent to them. Then, of 
those present when the question is brought to an issue, 
not many dare attempt a speech ; of those who dare, but 
few are clear-headed enough to see the full bearings of the 
measure they are about to vote upon ; and such as can see 
them are often prevented by nervousness from doing jus- 
tice to the views they hold. 

Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the party dis- 
playing antagonism to the board are apt to be regarded 
by their brother proprietors with more or less reprobation. 
Unless the misconduct of the governing body has been very 
glaring and very recent, there ever arises in the mass a prej- 
udice against all playing the part of an opposition. They 
are condemned as noisy, and factious, and obstructive; 
and often only by determined courage avoid being put 
down. Besides these negative reasons for the general in- 
efficiency of shareholders' resistance, there are sundry pos- 
itive ones. As writes a Member of Parliament who has 
been an extensive holder of stock in many companies from 
the first days of railway enterprise : — " My large and long 
acquaintance with Railway Companies' affairs, enables me 
to say, that a large majority of shareholders trust wholly 
to their directors, having little or no information, nor car- 
ing to have any opinion of their own. . . . Some others, 
better informed but timid, are afraid, by opposing the 
directors, of causing a depreciation of the value of their 
stock in the market, and are more alarmed at the prospect 
of this temporary depreciation than at the permanent loss 
entailed on the company by the useless, and therefore un- 
profitable, outlay of additional capital. . . . Others again, 
believing that the impending permanent evil is inevitable, 
resolve on the spot to sell out immediately, and to keep 
up the prices of their shares, also give their support to the 
directors." 



280 KAILWAY MOEALS AND KAILWAY POLICY. 

Thus, from lack of organization and efficiency among 
those who express their opposition, and from the timidity 
and double-facedness of those who do not, it happens that 
extremely unwise projects are carried by large majorities. 
Nor is this all. The tactics of the aggressive party are 
commonly as skilful as those of their antagonists are 
bungling. In the first place, the chairman, who is very 
generally the chief promoter of the contested scheme, has 
it in his power to favour those who take his own side, and 
to throw difficulties in the way of opponents ; and this he 
not unfrequently does to a great extent — refusing to hear, 
putting down on some plea of breach of order, brow- 
beating, even using threats.* It generally turns out too, 
that, whether intentionally or not, some of the most im- 
portant motions are postponed until nearly the close of 
the meeting, when the greater portion of the shareholders 
are gone. Large money-votes, extensive powers, unlim- 
ited permits to directors to take, in certain matters, "finch 
steps as in their judgment they may deem most expedi- 
ent," — these, and the like, are left to be hurried over dur- 
ing the last half-hour, when the tired and impatient rem- 
nant will no longer listen to objectors ; and when those 
who have personal ends to serve by outstaying the rest, 
carry everything their own way. Indeed, in some in- 
stances, the arrangements are such as almost to eusure the 
meeting becoming a pro-extension one towards the end. 

This result is brought about thus : — A certain portion 

* We may remark in passing, that the praetiee of making the chairman 
of the board also chairman of the half-yearly meetings, is a very injudi- 
cious one. The directors are the servants of the proprietary ; and meet 
them from time to time to render an account of their stewardship. That 
the chief of these servants, whose proceedings are about to 1 
should himself act as chief of the jury, is absurd. Obviously, the business 
of each meeting should be conducted by some one independently eho> 
the purpose ; as the Speaker is chosen by the House of Commons, 



MANAGEMENT OF THE MEETINGS. 281 

of the general body of proprietors are also proprietors of 
some subordinate work — some branch line, or steamboats, 
or canal, which the Company has purchased or leased ; 
and as holders of guaranteed stock, probably having capi- 
tal to take up further such stock if they can get it, they 
are naturally favourable to projects that are to be executed 
on the preference-share system. These hold their meeting 
for the declaration of dividend, &c, as soon as the meet- 
ing of the Company at large has been dissolved ; and in 
the same room. Hence it happens, that being kept to- 
gether by the prospect of subsequent business, they grad- 
ually, towards the close of the general meeting, come to 
form the majority of those present ; and the few ordinary 
shareholders who have been patient enough to stay, are 
outvoted by those having interests quite distinct from 
their own — quite at variance with the welfare of the Com- 
rany. 

And here this allusion to the preference-share system, 
introduces us to a fact which may fitly close this detail of 
private interests and questionable practices — a fact serving 
at once to illustrate the subtlety and concert of railway 
officialism, and the power it can exert. That this fact 
may be fully appreciated, it must be premised, that though 
preference-shares do not usually carry votes, they are some- 
times specially endowed with them ; and further, that 
they occasionally remain unpaid up until the expiration 
of a time after which no further calls can be legally made. 
In the case in question, a large number of £50 preference- 
shares had thus long stood with but £5 paid. Those de- 
sirous of promoting extensions, &c, had here a fine oppor- 
tunity of getting great power in the Company at small 
cost ; and as we shall see, they duly availed themselves 
of it. Already had their party twice tried to thrust the 
proprietary into a new undertaking of great magnitude. 
Twice had they entailed on them an expensive and harass- 



282 



RAILWAY MOFwALS AXD EALLWAY POLICY. 



Ing contest. A third time, notwithstanding a professed 
relinquishment of it, they brought forward substantially 
the same scheme, and were defeated only by a small ma- 
jority. The following extracts from the division lists we 
take from the statement of one of the scrutineers : 





50/.Prc- 




Number 




C-rence 


Rp' - 


- 




SI 1T.- 


Additional Stock or Share*. St 


scored for 




withfit 


Ml 


tal paid 






paid up. 


as held. 


np. 








±i 


£ 








'. stock, and ' 








The Company's solicitor. . . 


£00 


501 shares, 












with 42/. 1U«. 
1 np. 


75,650 


1S,140 




Ditto in joint account with 












another 


rra 

60 


None. 
None. 


8.000 




20 


Phe solicitor's partner 


1'ho Company's engineer... 




None. 








The engineers partner 


1,354 


4,266/. stock. 






1G1 


One of the Company's par- 












liamentary counsel 


200 


stock. 


11.000 


2.000 


40 


Another ditto, ditto 


V2b 


HXML i 


6,400 


--■ 


8o 


Local solicitor for the pro- 












posed extension 


7 


None. 


350 


85 


7 


The Company's contractor 












for permanent-way 


347 


B8i 


70,1S3 






The Company's conveyan- 












cer 


1,003 


S33/. stock. 


50,4S3 






The Company's furniture 






printer 


85 

SGO 


10.0007. gtock. 


11,788 




41 
66 


The Company's surveyor.. 


rhe Company's architect. . 


I'll 


14,916/. stock: 
shares, with 
paid up; a: . 
shares, with 34/. 
paid up. 




- 


SI 


One of the Company's cur- 












riers 


IT 


stock. 


1,6S8 




14 


The Company's bankers:— 


One partner 

Another partner 






s±m 




90 


.... 




2,500 


. 


1? 


Ditto in joint account 












with another 






1,000 


850 


12 



To this list, some seven or eight of the Company \> 
tradesmen, similarly armed, might be added : raisin.: 
Dumber ot' the almost factitious shares held by functiona- 
ries to about 5,200, and increasing the votes commanded 
by them, from its present total of 1,0GS to upwards of 
1,100. If now we separate the £380,000, which :' 






CHARACTER OF SHAREHOLDERS. 283 

gentlemen bring to bear against their brother sharehold* 
ers, into real and nominal, we find that while not quite 
£120,000 of it is bond fide property invested, the remain- 
ing £260,000 is nine parts shadow and one part substance. 
And thus it results, that by virtue of certain stock actually 
representing but £26,000, these lawyers, engineers, coun- 
sel, conveyancers, contractors, bankers, and others inter- 
ested in the promotion of new schemes, outweigh more 
than a quarter of a million of the real capital held by 
shareholders whom these schemes will injure ! 

Need we any longer wonder, then, at the persistence 
of Railway Companies in seemingly reckless competition 
and ruinous extensions ? Is not this obstinate continu- 
ance of a policy that has year after year proved disas- 
trous, sufficiently explicable on contemplating the many 
illegitimate influences at work ? Is it not manifest that 
the small organized party always outmanoeuvres the large 
unorganized one ? Consider their respective characters 
and circumstances. Here are the shareholders diffused 
throughout the whole kingdom, in towns and country 
houses ; knowing nothing of each other, and too remote 
to cooperate were they acquainted. Very few of them see 
a railway journal; not many a daily one; and scarcely 
any know much of railway politics. Necessarily a fluc- 
tuating body, only a small . number are familiar with the 
Company's history — its acts, engagements, policy, man- 
agement. A great proportion are incompetent to judge 
of the questions that come before them, and lack decision 
to act out such judgments as they may form — executors 
who do not like to take steps involving much responsibil- 
ity ; trustees fearful of interfering with the property un- 
der their care, lest possible loss should entail a lawsuit ; 
widows who have never in their lives acted for themselves 
in any affair of moment • maiden ladies, alike nervous and 



284 RAILWAY MOEALS AXD E AIL WAT POLICY. 

innocent of all business knowledge ; clergymen whose 
daily discipline has been little calculated to make them 
acute men of the world ; retired tradesmen whose retail 
transactions have given them small ability foi grasping 
large considerations ; servants possessed of accumulated 
savings and cramped notions ; with sundry others of like 
helpless character — all of them rendered more or less con- 
servative by ignorance or timidity, and proportionately 
inclined to support those in authority. To these should 
be added the class of temporary shareholders, who, having 
bought stock on speculation, and knowing that a revolu- 
tion in the Company is likely to depress prices for a time, 
have an interest in supporting the board irrespective of 
the goodness of its policy. 

Turn now to those whose efforts are directed to rail- 
way expansion. Consider the constant pressure of local 
interests — of small towns, of rural districts, of landown- 
ers : all of them eager for branch accommodation ; all of 
them with great and definite advantages in view ; few of 
them conscious of the loss those advantages may entail on 
others. Remember the influence of legislators, prompted, 
some by their constituents, some by personal aims, and 
encouraged by the belief that additional railway facilities 
are in every case nationally beneficial ; and then calculate 
the extent to which, as stated to Mr. Cardwell'a commit- 
tee, Parliament has " excited and urged forward" Compa- 
nies into rivalry. Observe the temptations under which 
lawyers are placed — the vast profits accruing to them from 
every railway contest, whether ending in success or fail- 
ure ; and then imagine the magnitude and subtlety of 
their extension manoeuvring. Conceive the urgency of the 
engineering profession ; to the richer of whom more rail- 
way-making means more wealth ; to the mass of whom 
more railway-making means daily bread. Estimate the 
capitalist-power of contractors ; whose unemployed plant 



PRESSURE OF CLASS-INTERESTS. 285 

brings heavy loss ; whose plant when employed brings 
great gain. Then recollect that to lawyers, engineers, 
and contractors the getting up and executing of new un- 
dertakings is a business — a business to which every en- 
ergy is directed ; in which long years of practice have 
given great skill; and to the facilitation of which, all 
means tolerated by men of the world are thought justifi- 
able. 

Finally, consider that the classes interested in carrying 
out new schemes, are in constant communication, and have 
every facility for combined action. A great part of them 
live in London, and most of these have offices at West- 
minster — in Great George Street, in Parliament Street, 
clustering round the Legislature. Not only are they thus 
concentrated — not only are they throughout the year in 
frequent business intercourse ; but during the session they 
are daily together, in Palace- Yard Hotels, in the lobbies, 
in the committee-rooms, in the House of Commons itself. 
Is it any wonder then, that the wide-spread, ill-informed, 
unorganized body of shareholders, standing severally 
alone, and each preoccupied with his daily affairs, should 
be continually outgeneralled by the comparatively small 
but active, skilful, combined body opposed to them, whose 
very occupation is at stake in gaining the victory ? 

" But how about the directors ? " it will perhaps be 
asked. " How can they be parties to these obviously un- 
wise undertakings ? They are themselves shareholders : 
they gain by what benefits the proprietary at large ; they 
lose by what injures it. And if without their consent, or 
rather their agency, no new scheme can be adopted by the 
Company, the classes interested in fostering railway enter- 
prise are powerless to do harm." 

This belief in the identity of directorial and proprie- 
tary interests, is the fatal error commonly made by share- 
holders. It is this which, in spite of many bitter expe 



286 RAILWAY MORALS AXD RAILWAY POLICY. 

riences, leads theni to be so careless and so trustful, 
u Their profit is our profit ; their loss is our loss ; they 
know more than we do ; therefore let us leave the matter 
to them." Such is the argument which more or less defi- 
nitely passes through the shareholding mind — an argu- 
ment of which the premises are vicious, and the inference 
disastrous. Let us consider it in detail. 

Not to dwell upon the disclosures that have in years 
past been made respecting the share-trafficking of boards, 
and the large profits realized by it — disclosures which 
alone suffice to disprove the assumed identity between the 
interests of directors and proprietary — and taking for 
granted that little, if any, of this now takes place ; let us 
go on to notice the still-prevailing influences which render 
this apparent unity of purpose illusive. The immediate 
interest which directors have in the prosperity of the Com- 
pany, is often much less than is supposed. Occasionally 
they possess only the bare qualification of £1,000 worth 
of stock. In some instances CA'en this is partly nominal. 
Admitting, however, as we do frankly, that in the great 
majority of cases the full qualification, and much more 
than the qualification, is held; yet it must be borne in 
mind that the indirect advantages which a wealthy mem- 
ber of a board may gain from the prosecution of a new 
undertaking, will often far outweigh the direct injury it 
will inflict on him by the depreciation of his shares. A 
hoard usually consists, to a considerable extent, of gentle- 
men residing at different points throughout the tract of 
country traversed by the railway they control : some of 
them landowners ; some merchants or manufacturers ; 
some owners of mines or shipping. Almost always these 
are advantaged more or less by a new branch or feeder. 
Those in close proximity to it, gain either by enhanced 
value of their lands, or by increased facilities 01 transit 
for their commodities. Those at more remote pare* of tha 



DIRECTOKS NOT TO BE DEPENDED UPON. 287 

main line, though less, directly interested, are still fre- 
quently interested in some degree : for every extension 
opens up new markets either for produce or raw mate- 
rials ; and if it is one effecting a junction with some other 
system of railways, the greater mercantile conveniences 
afforded to directors thus circumstanced, become import- 
ant. 

Obviously, therefore, the indirect profits accruing to 
such from one of these new undertakings, may more than 
counterbalance the direct loss upon their railway invest- 
ments ; and though there are, doubtless, men far to hon- 
ourable to let such considerations sway them, yet the gen- 
erality can scarcely fail to be affected by temptations so 
strong. Then we have further to remember the influences 
brought to bear upon directors having seats in Parliament. 
Already these have been noticed ; and we recur to them 
only for the purpose of pointing out that the immediate 
evil of an increased discount on his £1,000 worth of stock, 
may be to a director of much less consequence than the 
favours, patronage, connections, position, which his aid 
in carrying a new scheme will bring him — a consideration 
which, without saying how far it applies, suffices to 
show that in this respect, also, the supposed identity of 
interests between directors and shareholders does not hold. 

Moreover, the disunion of interests produced by these 
influences is increased by the system of preference-stock. 
"Were there no other cause in action, this practice of rais- 
ing capital for supplementary undertakings, by issuing 
shares bearing a guaranteed interest of 5, 6, and 1 per 
cent., would alone destroy that community of motives 
supposed to exist between a railway proprietary and its 
executive. Little as the fact is at present recognized, it is 
yet readily demonstrable that by raising one of these 
mortgages, a Company is forthwith divided into two 
classes : the one consisting of the richer shareholders, in- 
13 



28S RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

elusive of the directors, and the other of the poorer share- 
holders ; of which classes the richer one can protect itself 
from the losses which the poorer one has to bear — nay, 
can even profit by the losses of the poorer one. This as- 
sertion, startling as it will be to many, we will proceed to 
prove. 

When the capital required for a branch or extension is 
raised by means of guaranteed shares, it is the custom to 
give each proprietor the option of taking up a number of 
such shares proportionate to the number of his original 
shares. By availing himself of this oifer, he more or less 
effectually protects himself against any possible loss which 
the new undertaking may entail. Should this, not fulfill- 
ing the promises of its advocates, diminish in some degree 
the general dividend; yet, a high dividend on the due 
proportion of preference-stock, may nearly or quite com- 
pensate for this. Hence, it becomes the policy of all who 
can do so, to take up as many guaranteed shares as they 
can get. But what happens when the circular announcing 
this apportionment of guaranteed shares is sent round to 
the proprietary ? Those who possess much stock, being 
generally capitalists, forthwith apply for as many as they 
are entitled to. On the other hand, the smaller holders, 
constituting as they do the bulk of the Company, having 
no available funds with which to pay the calls on new 
shares, are obliged to decline them. What results ? 
When tliis additional line has been opened, and it turns 
out, as usual, that its revenue is insufficient to meet the 
guaranteed dividend on its shares — when the general in- 
come of the Company is laid under contribution to make 
up this guaranteed dividend — when as a consequence, the 
dividend on the original stock is diminished ; then the 
poorer shareholders who possess original stock only, find 
themselves losers ; while the richer ones, possessing guar- 
anteed shares in addition, find that their gain on pi 



DISADVANTAGES OF SMALL SHAREHOLDERS. 289 

ence-dividends nearly or quite counterbalances their loss on 
general dividends. 

Indeed, as above hinted, the case is even worse. For 
as the large share-proprietor who has obtained his propor- 
tion of guaranteed stock, is not obliged to retain his orig- 
inal stock — as, if he doubts the paying character of the 
new undertaking, he can always sell such part of his 
shares as will suffer from it ; it is obvious that he may, if 
he pleases, become the possessor of preference-shares only; 
and may so obtain a handsome return for his money at the 
expense of the* Company at large and the small sharehold- 
ers in particular. How far this policy is pursued we do 
not pretend to say. All which it here concerns us to no 
tice, is, that directors being mostly men of large means 
and being therefore able to avail themselves of this guar- 
anteed stock, by which at least much loss may be warded 
off if not profit made, are liable to be swayed by motives 
different from those of the general proprietary. And that 
they often are so swayed there cannot be a doubt. With- 
out assuming any of them to be guilty of so flagitious an 
intention as that of benefiting at the cost of their co-pro- 
prietors ; and believing, as we do, that few of them duly 
realize the fact that the protection they will have, is a 
protection not available to the mass of the shareholders ; 
Ave think it is a rational deduction from common expe- 
rience, that this prospect of compensation will often turn 
the scale in the minds of those who are hesitating, and 
diminish the opposition on the part of those who disap- 
prove. 

Thus, the belief which leads the majority of railway 
shareholders to place implicit faith in their directors, is an 
erroneous one. It is not true that there is an identity ol 
interest between the proprietary and its executive. It is 
not true that the board forms an efficient guard against 
the intrigues of lawyers, engineers, contractors, and others 



290 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

who profit by railway-making. On the contrary, it is true 
that its members are not only liable to be drawn from 
their line of duty by various indirect motives, but that by 
the system of guaranteed shares they are placed under a 
positive temptation to betray their constituents. 

And now what is the proximate origin of all these cor- 
ruptions ? and what is the remedy for them ? "What gen- 
eral error in railway legislation is it that has made possi- 
ble such complicated chicaneries ? Whence arises this 
facility with which interested persons continually thrust 
companies into unwise enterprises ? AVe believe there is 
a very simple answer to these questions. It is an answer, 
however, which will at first sight be thought quite irrele- 
vant : and we doubt not that the corollary we propose 
drawing from it, will be forthwith condemned by practi- 
cal men as incapable of being acted on. Nevertheless, if 
such will give us a little time to explain, we are not with- 
out hope of showing, both that the evils laboured undei 
would be excluded were this principle recognised, and that 
the recognition of it is not only feasible, but would even 
open the way out of sundry perplexities in which railway 
legislation is at present involved. 

We conceive, then, that the fundamental vice of our 
system, as hitherto carried out, lies in the misinterpreta- 
tion of the proprietory contract — the contract tacitly en- 
tered into between each shareholder and the body of 
shareholders with whom he unites ; and that the remedy 
desired lies simply in the enforcement of an equitable in 
terpretation of this contract. In reality it is a strictly 
limited one : in practice it is treated as altogether unlim- 
ited : and the thing needed is, that it should be clearly 
defined and abided by. 

Our popular form of government has so habituated dj 
to seeing public questions decided by the voice of the ma 



ROOT OF THESE CORRUPTIONS. 291 

jority, and the system is so manifestly equitable in the 
cases daily before us, that there has been produced in the 
general mind, an unhesitating belief that the majority's 
power is unbounded. Under whatever circumstances, or 
for whatever ends, a number of men cooperate, it is held 
that if difference of opinion arises among them, justice re- 
quires that the will of the greater number shall be exe- 
cuted rather than that of the smaller number ; and this 
rule is supposed to be uniformly applicable, be the ques- 
tion at issue what it may. So confirmed is this convic- 
tion, and so little have the ethics of the matter been con- 
sidered, that to most this mere suggestion of a doubt will 
cause some astonishment. Yet it needs but a brief analy- 
sis to show that the opinion is little better than a political 
superstition. Instances may readily be selected, which 
prove, by reductio ad ahsurdum, that the right of a ma- 
jority is a purely conditional right, valid only within spe- 
cific limits. Let us take a few. 

Suppose that at the general meeting of some philan- 
thropic association, it was resolved that in addition to re- 
lieving distress the association should employ home-mis- 
sionaries to preach down popery. Might the subscriptions 
of Catholics, who had joined the body with charitable 
views, be rightfully used for this end ? Suppose that of 
the members of a book-club, the greater number, thinking 
that under existing circumstances rifle-practice was more 
important than reading, should decide to change the pur- 
pose of their union, and to apply the funds in hand for 
the purchase of powder, ball, and targets. "Would the 
rest be bound by this decision ? Suppose that under the 
excitement of news from Australia, the majority of a Free- 
hold Land Society should determine, not simply to start 
m a body for the gold diggings, but to use their accumu- 
lated capital to provide outfits. Would this appropria- 
tion of property be just to the minority? and must these 



292 BAIL WAT MOEALS AND KAXLWAY POLICY. 

join the expedition ? Scarcely any one would venture an 
affirmative answer even to the first of these questions ; 
much less to the others. And why ? Because every one 
must perceive that by uniting himself with others, no man 
can equitably be betrayed into acts utterly foreign to the 
purpose for which he joined them. Each of these sup- 
posed minorities would properly reply to those seeking 
to coerce them : " We combined witja you for a defined 
object ; we gave money and time for the furtherance 
of that object; on all questions thence arising, we tacitly 
agreed to conform to the will of the greater number; but 
we did not agree to conform on any other questions. 
If you induce us to join you by professing a certain end, 
and then undertake some other end of which we were not 
apprised, you obtain our support under false pretences ; 
you exceed the expressed or understood compact to which 
we committed ourselves ; and we are no longer bound by 
your decisions." 

Clearly this is the only rational interpretation of the 
matter. The general principle underlying the right govern- 
ment of every incorporated body is, that its members con- 
tract with each other severally to submit to the will of the 
majority in all matters concerning the fulfilment of the ob- 
jects for which they are incorporated ; but in no others. 
To this extent only can the contract hold. For as it is im- 
plied in the very nature of a contract, that those entering 
into it must know what they contract to do ; and as those 
Avho unite with others for a specified object, cannot con- 
template all the unspecified objects which it is hypotheti- 
cally possible for the' union to undertake ; it follows that 
the contract entered into cannot extend to such unspeci- 
fied objects ; and if there exists no expressed or under- 
stood contract between the union and its members respect- 
ing unspecified objects, then for the majority to coerce the 
minority into undertaking them, is nothing less than gross 
tvranny. 



THE DIFFICULTY A BREACH OF CONTRACT. 293 

Now this almost self-evident principle is wholly ig- 
nored alike in our railway legislation and the proceedings 
of our companies. Definite as is the purpose with which 
the promoters of a public enterprise combine, endless 
other purposes not dreamed of at the outset are commonly 
added to it ; and this, apparently without any suspicion 
that such a course is altogether unwarrantable, unless 
taken with the unanimous consent of the proprietors. 
The unsuspecting shareholder who signed the subscription 
contract for a line from Greatborough to Grandport, did 
so under the belief that this line would not only be a pub- 
lic benefit but a good investment. He was familiar with 
the country. He had been at some trouble to estimate 
the traffic. And, fully believing that he knew what he 
was embarking in, he put down his name for a large 
amount. The line has been made ; a few years of pros- 
perity have justified his foresight ; when, at some fatal 
special meeting, a project is put before him for a branch 
from Littlehomestead to Stonyfield. The will of the 
board and the intrigues of the interested, overbear all op- 
position ; and in spite of the protests of many who like 
him see its impolicy, he presently finds himself involved 
in an undertaking which, when he joined the promoters 
of the original line, he had not the remotest conception 
would ever be proposed. From year to year this proceed- 
ing is repeated. His dividends dwindle and his shares 
go down ; and eventually the congeries of enterprises to 
which he is committed, grows so vast that the first enter- 
prise of the series becomes bu^; a small fraction of the 
whole. 

Yet it is in virtue of his consent to this first of the 
series, that all the rest are thrust upon him. He feels that 
there is an injustice somewhere ; but, believing in the un- 
limited right of a majority, fails to detect it. He does 
not see that when the first of these extensions was pro- 



294 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

posed, he should have denied the power of his brother- 
shareholders to implicate him in an undertaking not named 
in their deed of incorporation. He should have told the 
advocates of this new undertaking that they were per- 
fectly free to form a separate Company for the execution 
of it ; but that they could not rightfully compel dissen- 
tients to join in a new project, any more than they could 
rightfully have compelled dissentients to join in the origi- 
nal project. Had such a shareholder united with others 
for the specified general purpose of making railways, he 
would have had no ground for protest. But he united 
with others for the specified purpose of making a particu- 
lar railway. Yet such is the confusion of ideas on the 
subject, that there is absolutely no difference recognized 
between these cases ! 

It will doubtless be alleged in defence of all this, that 
these secondary enterprises are supplementary to the orig- 
inal one — or in some sense undertaken for the furtherance 
of it ; professedly minister to its prosperity ; cannot, there- 
fore, be regarded as altogether separate enterprises. And 
it is true that they have this for their excuse. But if it is 
a sufficient excuse for accessories of this nature, it may be 
made a sufficient excuse for any accessories whatever. 
Already, Companies have carried the practice beyond the 
making of branches and extensions. Already, under the 
plea of bringing more traffic to their lines, they have con- 
structed docks; bought lines of steam-packets; built vast 
hotels ; deepened river-channels. Already, they have cre- 
ated small towns for their workmen ; erected churches 
and schools ; salaried clergymen and teachers. Are these 
warranted on the ground of advancing the Companies 1 
interests? Then thousands of other undertakings are sim- 
ilarly warranted. 

If a view to the development of traffic justifies the 
makirgr of a branch to some neighbouring coal-mines 



WHERE THE PRINCIPLE LEADS. 295 

then, should the coal-mines be inefficiently worked, the 
same view would justify the purchase of them — would 
justify the Company in becoming coal-miner and coal- 
seller. If anticipated increase of goods and passengers is 
a sufficient reason for carrying a feeder into an agricultural 
district, then it is a sufficient reason for organizing a sys- 
tem of coaches and wagons to run in connection with 
this feeder; for making the requisite horse-breeding es- 
tablishments ; for hiring the needful farms ; for buying 
estates ; for becoming agriculturists. If it be allowable 
to purchase steamers plying in conjunction with the rail- 
way ; it must be allowable to purchase merchant vessels 
to trade in conjunction with it ; it must be allowable to 
set up a yard for building such vessels ; it must be allow- 
able to erect depots at foreign ports for the receipt of 
goods ; it must be allowable to employ commission agents 
for the collection of such goods ; it must be allowable to 
extend a mercantile organization all over the world. 
From making its own engines and carriages, a Company 
may readily progress to manufacturing its own iron and 
growing its own timber. From giving its employes secu- 
lar and religious instruction, and providing houses for 
them, it may go on to supply them with food, clothing, 
medical attendance, and all the needs of life. Beginning 
simply as a corporation to make and work a railway be- 
tween A and B, it may become a miner, manufacturer, 
merchant, ship-owner, canal-proprietor, hotel-keeper, land- 
owner, house-builder, farmer, retail-trader, priest, teacher — 
an organization of indefinite extent and complication. 
There is no logical alternative between permitting this, 
and strictly limiting the corporation to the object first 
agreed upon. A man joining with others for a specific 
purpose, must be held to commit himself to that purpose 
only, or else to all purposes whatever that they may cboose 
to undertake. 



296 RAILWAY MOEALS AND EALLWAV POLICY. 

But proprietors dissenting from one of these supple 
mentary projects are told that they have the option of 
selling out. So might the dissentients from a new State- 
enforced creed be told, that if they did not like it they 
might leave the country. The one reply is little more sat- 
isfactory than the other would he. The opposing share- 
holder sees himself in possession of a good inTestment — 
one perhaps which, as an original subscriber, he ran some 
risk in obtaining. This inTestment is about to be endan- 
gered by an act not named in the deed of incorporation. 
And his protests are met by saying, that if he fears the dan- 
ger he may part with his investment. Surely this choice 
between two evils scarcely meets his claims. Moreover, 
he has not even this in any fair sense. It is often an unfa- 
vourable time to sell. The very rumour of one of these 
extensions frequently causes a depreciation of stock. And 
if many of the minority throw their shares on the market, 
this depreciation is greatly increased ; a fact which fur- 
ther hinders them from selling. Thus, the choice is in re- 
ality between parting with a good investment at much 
less than its value, and running the risk of having its value 
greatly diminished. 

The injustice thus inflicted on minorities is. indeed, al- 
ready recognized in a certain vague way. The recently- 
established Standing Order of the House of Lords, that 
before a Company can carry out any new undertaking, 
three-fourths of the votes of the proprietors shall be re- 
corded in its flavour, clearly implies a perception that the 
nsual rule of the majority does not apply. And again, in 
the case of the Great Western Eailway Company versus 
Rushout, the decision that the funds of the Company 
could not be used for purposes not originally authorized, 
without a special legislative permit, involves the doctrine 
that the will of the greater number is not of unlimited 
validity. In both these cases, however, it is taken foi 



GOVERNMENT BOUND TO ENFORCE CONTRACTS. 297 

granted that a State-warrant can justify what without it 
would be unjustifiable. We must take leave to question 
this. If it be held that an Act of Parliament can make 
murder proper, or can give rectitude to robbery, it may 
be consistently held that it can sanctify a breach of con- 
tract; but not otherwise. We are not about to enter 
upon the vexed question of the standard of right and 
wrong ; and to inquire whether it is the function of a gov 
eminent to make rules of conduct, or simply to enforce rules 
deducible from the laws of social life. We are content, 
for the occasion, to adopt the expediency-hypothesis ; and 
adopting it, must yet contend, that, rightly interpreted, it 
gives no countenance to this supposed power of a Gov- 
ernment to alter the limits of an equitable contract against 
the wishes of some of the contracting parties. For, as 
understood by its teachers and their chief disciples, the 
doctrine of expediency is not a doctrine implying that 
each particular act is to be determined by the particular 
consequences that may be expected to flow from it ; but 
that the general consequences of entire classes of acts hav- 
ing been ascertained by induction from experience, rules 
shall be framed for the regulation of such classes of acts, 
and each rule shall be uniformly applied to every act com- 
ing under it. Our whole administration of justice pro- 
ceeds on this principle of invariably enforcing an ordained 
course, regardless of special results. Were immediate 
consequences to be considered, the verdict gained by the 
rich creditor against the poor debtor would generally be 
reversed ; for the starvation of the last is a much greater 
evil than the inconvenience of the first. Most thefts aris- 
ing from distress would go unpunished ; a great portion 
of men's wills would be cancelled ; many of the wealthy 
would be dispossessed of their fortunes. 

But it is clearly seen, that were judges thus guided by 
proximate evils and benefits, the ultimate result would be 



293 RAILWAY MORALS AN T D RAILWAY POLICY. 

social confusion ; that what was immediately expedient 
would be ultimately inexpedient ; and hence the aim at 
rigorous uniformity, spite of incidental hardships. Xow, 
the binding nature of agreements is one of the common- 
est and most important principles of civil law. A large 
part of the causes daily heard in our courts, involve the 
question, whether in virtue of some expressed or under- 
stood contract, those concerned are, or are not, bound to 
certain acts or certain payments. And when it has been 
decided what the contract implies, the matter is settled. 
The contract itself is held sacred. And this sacredness 
of a contract, being, according to the expediency-hypoth- 
esis, justified by the experience of all nations in all times 
that it is generally beneficial, it is not competent for a 
Legislature to declare that contracts are violable. As- 
suming always that the contracts are themselves equita- 
ble, there is no rational system of ethics which warrants 
the alteration or dissolving of them, save by the consent 
of all concerned. If then it be shown, as we think it has 
been shown, that the contract tacitly entered into by rail- 
way shareholders with each other, has definite limits ; it 
is the function of the Government to enforce, and not to 
abolish, those limits. It cannot decline to enforce them 
without running counter, not only to all theories of moral 
obligation, but to its own judicial system. It cannot abol- 
ish them without glaring self-stultification. 

Returning, for a moment, to the manifold evils of which 
the misinterpretation of the proprietary contract was as- 
signed as the cause, it only remains to point out that, were 
the just construction of- this contract insisted upon, such 
evils would, in great part, be impossible. The various 
illicit influences by which Companies are daily betrayed 
into disastrous extensions, would necessarily be inopera- 
tive when- such extensions could not be undertaken by 
them. "When such extensions had to be undertaken hs 



COMMERCIAL VIEW OF THE MATTER. 299 

independent bodies of shareholders, with no one to guar- 
antee them good dividends, the local and class interests 
would find it a less easy matter than at present to aggran- 
dize themselves at the expense of others. 

And now as to the policy of thus modifying railway 
legislation — the commercial policy we mean. Leaving 
out of sight the more general social interests, let us glance 
at the effects on mercantile interests — the proximate in- 
stead of the ultimate effects. The implication contained 
in the last paragraph, that the making of branches and 
supplementary lines would no longer be so facile, will be 
thought to prove the disadvantage of any such limit as 
the one advocated. Many will argue, that to restrict 
Companies to their original undertakings would fatally 
cripple railway enterprise. Many others will remark, 
that, however detrimental to shareholders this extension 
system may have been, it has manifestly proved beneficial 
to the public. Both these positions seem to us more than 
questionable. We will first look at the last of them. 

Even were travelling accommodation the sole thing to 
be considered, it would not be true that prodigality in 
new lines has been advantageous. The districts supplied 
have, in many cases, themselves been injured by it. It is 
shown by the evidence given before the Select Committee 
on Railway and Canal Bills, that in Lancashire, the exist- 
ence of competing lines has, in some cases, both dimin- 
ished the facilities of communication and increased the 
cost. It is further shown by this evidence, that a town 
obtaining branches from two antagonist Companies, by- 
and-by, in consequence of a working arrangement be- 
tween these Companies, comes to be worse off than if it 
had but one branch : and Hastings is quoted as an ex- 
ample. 

It is again shown that a district may be wholly de- 



300 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

prived of railway accommodation by granting a supernu 
ity of lines ; as in the case of Wilts and Dorset. In 
1844-'5, the Great Western and the South Western Com- 
panies projected rival systems of lines, supplying these 
and parts of the adjacent counties. The Board of Trade 
" asserting that there was not sufficient traffic to remuner- 
ate an outlay for two independent railways," reported in 
favour of the Great Western schemes, and bills were 
granted for them : a certain agreement, suggested by the 
Board of Trade, being at the same time made with the 
South Western, which, in return for specified advantages, 
conceded this district to its rival. Notwithstanding this 
agreement, the South Western, in 1847, projected an ex- 
tension calculated to take most of the traffic from the 
Great Western extensions ; and in 1848, Parliament, 
though it had virtually suggested this agreement, and 
though the Great Western Company had already spent a 
million and a half in the part execution of the new lines, 
authorized the South Western project. The result was, 
that the Great Western Conrpany suspended their works ; 
the South Western Company were unable, from financial 
difficulties, to proceed with theirs ; the district has re- 
mained for years unaccommodated ; and only since the 
powers granted to the South Western have expired from 
delay, has the Great Western recommenced its long-sus- 
pended undertakings. 

And if this undue multiplication of supplementary 
lines has often directly decreased the facilities of commu- 
nication, still more has it done this indirectly, by main- 
taining the cost of travelling on the main lines. Little as 
the public are conscious of the fact, it is nevertheless true, 
that they pay for the accommodation of unremunerativc 
districts, by high fares in remunerative districts. Before 
this reckless branch-making commenced, S and 9 per cent. 
were the dividends returned by our chief railwavs ; and 



HOW BKANCHES INJTTEE THE MAIN LINES. 301 

these dividends were rapidly increasing. The maximum 
dividend allowed by their Acts is 10 per cent. Had there 
not been unprofitable extensions, this maximum would 
have been reached many years since ; and in the absence 
of the power to undertake new works, the fact that it had 
been reached could not have been hidden. Lower rates 
for goods and passengers would necessarily have followed. 
These would have caused a large additional traffic ; and 
with the aid of the natural increase otherwise going on, 
the maximum would shortly again have been reached. 

There can scarcely be a doubt that repetitions of this 
process would, before now, have reduced the fares and 
freights on our main lines to at least one-third less than 
the present ones. This reduction, be it remembered, 
would have affected those railways which subserve com- 
mercial and social intercourse in the greatest degree — 
would, therefore, have applied to the most important part 
of the traffic throughout the kingdom. As it is, however, 
this greater proportion of the traffic has been heavily 
taxed for the benefit of the smaller proportion. That the 
tens who travel on branches might have railway commu- 
nication, the hundreds who travel along main lines have 
been charged 30, perhaps 40 per cent, extra. Nay, worse: 
that these tens might be accommodated, the hundreds 
who would have been brought on to the main lines by 
lower fares have gone unaccommodated. Is it then so 
clear that undertakings which have been disastrous to 
shareholders have yet been beneficial to the public ? 

But it is not only in greater cost of transit that the 
evil has been felt; it has been felt also in diminished 
safety. The multiplication of railway accidents, which 
has of late years drawn so much attention, has been in no 
inconsiderable degree caused by the extension policy. 
The relation is not obvious, and we had ourselves no con- 
ception that such a relation existed, until the facts illustra 



302 RAILWAY MORALS AND HALLWAY POLICY. 

tive of it were furnished to us by a director who had wit 
nessed the whole process of causation. When preference- 
share dividends and guarantees began to make large 
draughts upon half-yearly revenues — when original stock 
was greatly depreciated, and the dividends upon it fell 
from 9 and 8 per cent, to 4£ and 4 and 34-, great dissatis- 
faction necessarily arose among shareholders. There were 
stormy meetings, motions of censure, and committees of 
investigation. Retrenchment was the general cry; and 
retrenchment was carried to a most imprudent extent. 
Directors with an indignant proprietary to face, and under 
the fear that their next dividend would be no greater, per- 
haps less, than the last, dared not to lay out money for the 
needful repairs. Permanent way, reported to them ;; 
quiring to be rep.aeed, was made to serve awhile longer. 
Old rolling stock was not superseded by new to the proper 
extent; nor increased in proportion to the demand. Com- 
mittees, appointed to examine where the expenditure 
could be cut down, went round discharging a porter here, 
dispensing with a clerk there, and diminishing the sa: 
of the officials in general. To such a length was this 
policy carried, that in one case, to effect a saving of £ 
per annum, the working staff was so crippled as to cause, 
in the course of a few years, a loss of probably £100,000 : 
such, at least, is the opinion of the gentleman on whose 
authority we make this statement, who was himself one 
of the retrenchment committee. 

What, now, was the necessary result of all this ? 
With the line out of condition; with engines and car- 
riages neither sufficient in number nor in the best working 
order; with drivers, guards, porters, clerks, and the rest, 
decreased to the smallest number with which it was pos- 
sible to work ; with inexperienced managers in place ot^ 
the experienced ones driven away by reduced salaries ; 
what was likely to occur? Was it not certain that an 



EVILS ENTAILED BY OVER-EXTENSION. 303 

apparatus of means just competent to deal with tl e ordi« 
nary traffic, would be incompetent to deal with extraordi- 
nary traffic ? that a decimated body of officials under infe- 
rior regulation, would fail in the emergencies sure from 
time to time to occur ? that with way and works and roll- 
ing stock all below par, there would occasionally be a 
concurrence of small defects, permitting something to go 
wrong ? Was not a multiplication of accidents inevita- 
ble ? No one can doubt it. And if we trace back this 
result step by step to its original cause — the reckless ex- 
penditure in new lines — we shall see further reason to 
doubt whether such expenditure has been as advantageous 
to the public as is supposed. We shall hesitate to indorse 
the opinion of the Select Committee on Railway and Ca- 
nal Bills, that it is desirable " to increase the facility for 
obtaining lines of local convenience." 

Still more doubtful becomes the alleged benefit accru- 
ing to the public from extensions that cause loss to share- 
holders, when, from considering the question as one of 
traffic, we turn to consider it as a general commercial 
question — a question of political economy. Were there 
no facts showing that the travelling facilities gained were 
counterbalanced, if not more than counterbalanced, by the 
travelling facilities lost, we should still contend that the 
making of branches which do not return fair dividends, is 
a national evil, and not a national good. The prevalent 
error committed in studying matters of this nature, con- 
sists in looking at them separately, rather than in connec- 
tion with other social wants and social benefits. Not only 
does one of these undertakings, when executed, affect so- 
ciety in various ways, but the effort put forth in the exe- 
cution of it affects society in various ways ; and to form a 
true estimate, the two sets of results must be compared. 
The axiom that " action and reaction are equal, and in op- 
posite directions," is true, not only in mechanics — it is t rue 



304 BAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

everywhere. Xo power can be put forth by a nation to 
achieve a given end, without producing, for the time be- 
ing, a corresponding inability to achieve some other end. 
No amount of capital can be abstracted for one purpose, 
without involving an equivalent lack of capital for another 
purpose. Every advantage wrought out by labour, is 
purchased by the relinquishment of some alternative ad- 
vantage which that labour might else have wrought out. 
In judging, therefore, of the benefits flowing from any 
public undertaking, it is requisite to consider them not by 
themselves, but as contrasted with the benefits which the 
invested capital would otherwise have secured. 

But how can these relative benefits be measured ? it 
may be asked. Very simply. The rate of interest which 
the capital will bring as thus respectively applied, is the 
measure, Money which, if used for a specific end. gives 
a smaller return than it would give if otherwise used, is 
used disadvantageous^-, not only to its possessors, but to 
the community. This is a corollary from the commonest 
principles of political economy — a corollary so simple that 
we can scarcely understand how, after the free-trade con- 
troversy, a committee, numbering among its members 
Mr. Bright and Mr. Cardwell, should have overlooked it. 
Have we not been long ago taught, that in the mercantile 
world capital goes where it is most wanted — that the bus- 
iness which is at any time attracting capital by unusually 
high returns, is a business proved by that very fact to be 
unusually active — that its unusual activity shows society 
to be making great demands upon it ; giving it high prof 
its ; wanting its commodities or services more than othei 
commodities or services? Do not eompari nong 

our railways demonstrate that those paying large divi- 
dends are those subserving the public needs in a gn 
degree than those paying smaller dividends ? and is it not 
obvious that the efforts of capitalists to get these larger 



MISAPPROPRIATION OF CAPITAL. 305 

dividends led them to supply the greater needs before the 
lesser needs ? 

Surely, the same law which holds in ordinary com- 
merce, and also holds between one railway investment 
and another, holds likewise between railway investments 
and other investments. If the money spent in making 
branches and feeders is yielding an average return of from 
1 to 2 per cent., while if employed in land-draining or 
ship-building, it would return 4 or 5 per cent, or more, it 
is a conclusive proof that money is more wanted for land- 
draining and ship-building than for branch-making. And 
the general conclusions to be drawn are, that that large 
proportion of railway capital which does not pay the cur- 
rent rate of interest, is capital ill laid out ; that if the returns 
on such proportion were capitalized at the current rate of 
interest, the resulting sum would represent its real value ; 
and that the difference between this sum and the amount 
expended, would indicate the national loss— a loss which, 
on the lowest estimate, would exceed £100,000,000. And 
however true it may be that the sum invested in unprofit- 
able lines will go on increasing in productiveness, yet as, 
if more wisely invested, it would similarly have gone on 
increasing in productiveness, perhaps even at a greater 
rate, this vast loss must be regarded as a permanent and 
not as a temporary one. 

Again then, we ask, is it so obvious that undertakings 
which have been disastrous to shareholders have been ad- • 
vantageous to the public ? Is it not obvious, rather, that 
in this respect, as in others, the interests of shareholders 
and the public are in the end identical ? And does it not 
seem that instead of recommending " increased facilities 
for obtaining lines of local convenience," the Select Com 
mittee might properly have reported that the existing fa 
cilities are abnormally great, and should be decreased ? 

There remains still to be considered the other of the 



306 E AIL WAT MORALS AND E ALL WAT POLICT. 

two objections above stated as liable to be raised against 
the proposed interpretation of the proprietary contract — 
the objection, namely, that it would be a serious hindrance 
to railway enterprise. After what has already been said, 
it is scarcely needful to reply, that the hindrance would 
be no greater than is natural and healthful — no greater 
than is requisite to hold in check the private interests at 
variance with public ones. This notion that railway en- 
terprise will not go on with due activity without artificial 
incentives — that bills for local extensions " rather need 
encouragement," as the committee say, is nothing bnt a 
remnant of protectionism. The motive which has hith- 
erto led to the formation of all independent railway com- 
panies — the search of capitalists for good investment a — 
may safely be left to form others as fast Bfl local require- 
ments become great enough to promise fair return^ : M 
fast, that is, as local requirements should be satk 
This would be ^manifest enough without illustration: but 
there are facts proving it. 

Already we have incidentally referred to the circum- 
stance, that it has of late become common for landow 
merchants, and others locally interested, to gel up rail- 
ways for their own accommodation, which they do not 
expect to pay satisfactory dividends; and in which they 
are yet content to invest considerable sums, under the be- 
lief that the indirect profits accruing to them from in- 
creased facilities of traffic, will outbalance the direct 
To so great an extent is this policy being carried, that, as 
stated to the Select Committee, " in Yorkshire and Xor 
thumberland, where branch lines are being made through 
mere agricultural districts, the landowners are giving I 
landfoT the purpose, and taking shares." Willi such ex- 
amples before us, it cannot rationally be doubted that 
there will always be capital forthcoming for making local 
lines as soon as the sum of the calculated benefits, direct 
and indirect, justifies its expenditure. 



nOW BRANCHES SHOULD BE CONSTRUCTED. 307 

" But," it will be urged, " a branch that would be un- 
remunerative as an independent property, is often remu- 
nerative to the company that has made it, in virtue of the 
traffic it brings to the trunk line. Though yielding mea- 
gre returns on its own capital, yet, by increasing the re- 
turns on the capital of the trunk line, it compensates, or 
more than compensates. Were the existing company, 
however, forbidden to extend its undertaking, such a 
branch would not be made, and injury would result." 
This is all true, with the exception of the last assertion, 
that such a branch would not be made. Though in its 
corporate capacity the company owning the trunk line 
would be unable to join in a work of this nature, there 
would be nothing to prevent individual shareholders in 
the trunk line from doing so to any extent they thought 
fit : and were the prospects as favourable as is assumed, 
this course, being manifestly advantageous to individual 
shareholders, would be pursued by many of them. If, 
acting in concert with others similarly circumstanced, the 
owner of £10,000 worth of stock in the trunk line, could 
aid the carrying out of a proposed feeder promising to re- 
turn only 2 per cent, on its cost, by taking shares to the 
extent of £1,000, it would answer his purpose to do this, 
providing the extra traffic it brought would raise the 
trunk-line dividend by one-fourth per cent. Thus, under 
a limited proprietary contract, companies would still, as 
now, foster extensions where they were wanted ; the only 
difference being, that in the absence of guaranteed divi- 
dends, some caution would be shown, and the poorer 
shareholders would not, as at present, be sacrificed to the 
richer. 

In brief, our position is, that whenever, by the efforts 
of all parties to be advantaged — local landowners, manu 
facturers, merchants, trunk-line shareholders, &c, the cap- 
ital for an extension can be raised — whenever it becomes 



308 RAILWAY MORALS AKD KAIL WAT POLICY. 

clear to all such, that their indirect profits plus their direct 
profits will make the investment a paying one ; the fact is 
proof that the line is wanted. On the contrary, whenever 
the prospective gains to those interested are insufficient to 
induce them to undertake it, the fact is proof that the line 
is not wanted so much as other things are wanted, and 
therefore ought not to he made. Instead, then, of the prin- 
ciple we advocate being objectionable as a check to rail- 
way enterprise, one of its merits is, that by destroying the 
artificial incentives to such enterprise, it would confine it 
within normal limits. 

A perusal of the evidence given before the Select Com- 
mittee will show that it has sundry other merits, which 
we have space only to indicate. 

It is estimated by Mr. Laing — and Mr. Stephenson, 
while declining to commit himself to the estimate, " does 
not believe he has overstated it" — that out of the £2 
000,000 already raised for the construction of our railways, 
£70,000,000 has been needlessly spent in contests, in du- 
plicate lines, in " the multiplication of an immense num- 
ber of schemes prosecuted at an almost reckless expense;" 
and Mr. Stephenson believes that this sum is " a very in- 
adequate representative of the actual loss in point of con- 
venience, economy, and other circumstances connected 
with traffic, which the public has sustained by reason of 
parliamentary carelessness in legislating for railways." 
Under an equitable interpretation of the proprietary con- 
tract, the greater part of this would have been avoided. 

The competition between rival companies in extension 
and branch-making, which has already done vast injury, 
and the effects of which, if not stopped, will, in the opin 
ion of Mr. Stephenson, be such that k * property now pay- 
ing 5 \ per cent, will in ten years be worth only 3 per cent, 
and that on twenty-one millions of money n — this compfl 
tition could never have existed in its intense and delef 
rkuis form under the limiting principle we advocate. 



NEED OF NOEMAL COMPETITION. 309 

Prompted by jealousy and antagonism, our companies 
have obtained powers for 2,000 miles of railway which 
they have never made. The millions thus squandered in 
surveys and parliamentary contests — "food for lawyers 
and engineers " — would nearly all have been saved, had 
each supplementary line been obtainable only by an inde- 
pendent body of proprietors with no one to shield them 
from the penalties of reckless scheming. 

It is admitted that the branches and feeders constructed 
from competitive motives have not been laid out in the 
best directions for the public. To defeat, or retaliate 
upon, opponents, having been one of the ends — often the 
chief end — in making them, routes have been chosen espe- 
cially calculated to effect this end ; and the local traffic 
has in consequence been ill provided for. Had these 
branches and feeders, however, been left to the enterprise 
of their respective districts, aided by such other enterprise 
as they could attract, the reverse would have been the 
fact : seeing that on the average, in these smaller cases, as 
in the greater ones, the routes which most accommodate 
the public must be the routes most profitable to projectors. 

Were the illegitimate competition in extension-niaking 
done away, there would remain between companies just 
that normal competition which is advantageous to all. It 
is not true, as is alleged, that there cannot exist between 
railways a competition analogous to that which exists be- 
tween traders. The evidence of Mr. Saunders, the Secre- 
tary of the Great Western Company, proves the contrary. 
He shows that where the Great Western and the North 
Western railways communicate with the same towns, as 
at Birmingham and Oxford, each has tacitly adopted the 
fare which the other was charging ; and that while there 
is thus no competition in fares, there is competition in 
speed and accommodation. The results are, that each 
takes that portion of the traffic, which, in virtue of its po* 



310 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 

sition and local circumstances, naturally falls to its share*, 
that each stimulates the other to give the greatest advan- 
tages it can afford ; and that each keeps the other in order 
by threatening to take away its natural share of the traf- 
fic, if, by ill-behaviour or inefficiency, it counterbalances 
the special advantages it offers. Xow, this is just the 
form which competition eventually assumes between trad- 
ers. After it has been ascertained by underselling what 
is the lowest remunerative price at which airy commodity 
can be sold, the general results are, that that becomes the 
established price ; that each trader is content to supply 
those only who, from proximity or other causes, naturally 
come to him; and that only when he treats his customers 
badly, need he fear that they will inconvenience them- 
selves by going elsewhere for their goods. 

Is there not, then, pressing need for an amendment of 
the laws affecting the proprietary contract — an amend- 
ment which shall transform it from an unlimited into a 
limited contract ; or rather not transform it into such, but 
recognize it as such ? If there be truth in our argument, 
the absence of any limitation has been the chief cause of 
the manifold evils of our railway administration. The 
share-trafficking of directors ; the complicated intrigues 
of lawyers, engineers, contractors, and others ; the betrayal 
of proprietaries — all the complicated corruptions which we 
have detailed, have primarily arisen from it, have been 
made possible by it. It has rendered travelling more 
costly and less safe than it would have been ; and while 
apparently facilitating- traffic, has indirectly hindered it. 
"By fostering antagonism, it has led to the ill laying-out of 
supplementary lines ; to the wasting of enormous sums in 
useless parliamentary contests ; to the loss of an almost 
incredible amount of national capital in the making of 
railways for which there is no due requirement. Regarded 






EXTENT OF THE INTERESTS INVOLVED. 311 

m the mass, the investments of shareholders have been 
reduced "by it to less than half the average productiveness 
which such investments should possess ; and, as all au- 
thorities admit, railway property is, even now, kept below 
its real value, by the fear of future depreciations conse- 
quent on future extensions, 

Consideriug, then, the vastness of the interests at 
stake — considering that the total capital of our companies 
will soon reach £300,000,000 — considering, on the one 
hand, the immense number of persons owning this capital 
(many of them with no incomes but what are derived 
from it), and, on the other hand, the great extent to which 
the community is concerned, both directly as to its com- 
mercial facilities, and indirectly as to the economy of its 
resources — considering all this, it becomes extremely im- 
portant that railway property should be placed on a secure 
footing, and railway enterprise confined within normal 
bounds. The change is demanded alike for the welfare of 
shareholders and the public ; and it is one which equity 
manifestly dictates. No charge of over-legislation can be 
brought against it. It is simply an extension to joint-stock 
contracts, of the principle applied to all other contracts ; 
it is merely a fulfilment of the State's judicial function in 
cases hitherto neglected ; it is nothing but a better admin* 
istration of justice. 



14 



VIII. 
GKACEFULNESS. 



THE doctrine that Beauty is our general name for cer- 
tain qualities of things which are habitually asso- 
ciated with our gratifications, and that thus our idea of 
beauty is a result of accumulated pleasurable experiences 
— a doctrine with which, under an expanded form, I wholly 
agree — has not, I think, been applied to that quality of 
form and movement which we term Grace. 

The attribute to which we apply this term clearly im- 
plies some perfection in the thing possessing it. We do 
not ascribe this attribute to cart-horses, tortoises, and hip- 
popotami, in all of which the powers of movement are 
imperfectly developed ; but we do ascribe it to grey- 
hounds, antelopes, racehorses, all of which have highly 
efficient locomotive organs. "What, then, is this distinctive 
peculiarity of structure and action which we call Grace ? 

One night while watching a dancer, and inwardly con- 
demning her tours de force as barbarisms which would be 
hissed, were not people such cowards as always to applaud 
what they think it the fashion to applaud, I remarked 
that the truly graceful motions occasionally introduced, 
were those performed with comparatively little effort. 
And remembering sundry confirmatory facts, I presently 



aEAC^ THE ECONOMY OF MUSCULAR EFFORT. 313 

came to the general conclusion, that, given a certain 
'change of attitude to be gone through — a certain action 
to be achieved, then it is most gracefully achieved when 
achieved with the least expenditure of force. In othei 
words, grace, as applied to motion, describes motion that 
is effected with an economy of muscular power ; grace, as 
applied to animal forms, describes forms capable of this 
economy ; grace, as applied to postures, describes postures 
that may be maintained with this economy ; and grace, as 
as applied to inanimate objects, describes such as exhibit 
certain analogies to these attitudes and forms. 

That this generalization, if not the whole truth, con- 
tains at least a large part of it, will, I think, become ob- 
vious, on considering how habitually we couple the words 
easy and graceful / and still more, on calling to mind 
some of the facts on which this association is based. The 
attitude of a soldier, drawing himself bolt upright when 
his sergeant shouts "attention," is more remote from 
gracefulness than when he relaxes at the words " stand at 
ease." The gauche visitor sitting stiffly on the edge of 
his chair, and his self-possessed host, whose limbs and 
body dispose themselves as convenience dictates, are con- 
trasts as much in effort as in elegance. When standing, 
we commonly economize power by throwing the weight 
chiefly on one leg, which we straighten to make it serve 
as a column, while we relax the other ; and to the same 
end, we allow the head to lean somewhat on one side. 
Both these attitudes are imitated in sculpture as elements 
of grace. 

Turning from attitudes to movements, our current re- 
marks will be found to imply the same relationship. No 
one praises as graceful, a walk that is irregular and jerking, 
and so displays waste of power; no one sees any beauty in 
the waddle of a fat man, or the trembling steps of an invalid, 
in both of which effort is visible. But the style of walk- 



314 GKACEFrLSESS, 

lng we admire is moderate in Telocity, perfec tly rh\ Lb* 
niical, unaccompanied by violent swinging of the arms, 
and giving us the impression that there is no conscious 
exertion, and, at the same time, that there is no force 
thrown away. In dancing, again, the prevailing difficulty 
— the proper disposal of the hands and arms — well illus- 
trates the same truth. Those who fail in overcoming this 
difficulty give the spectator the impression that their 
arms are a trouble to them ; they are held stiffly in some 
meaningless attitude, at an obvious expense of power ; 
they are checked from swinging in the directions in which 
they would naturally swing ; or they are so moved, that, 
instead of helping to maintain the equilibrium, they en- 
danger it. A good dancer, on the contrary, makes us feel 
that, so far from the arms being in the way, they are of 
great use. Each motion of them, while it seems naturally 
to result from a previous motion of the body, is turned to 
some advantage. We perceive that it has facilitated in- 
stead of hindered the general action ; or, in other wo; 
that an economy of effort has been achieved. Any one 
wishing to distinctly realize this fact, may readily do so 
by studying the action of the arms in walking. Let him 
place his arms close to his sides, and there keep them, 
while walking with some rapidity. He will unavoidably 
fall into a backward and forward motion of the shoulders, 
of a wriggling, ungraceful character. After persevering 
in this for a space, until he finds, as he will do, that the 
action is not only ungraceful but fatiguing, let him sud- 
denly allow his arms to swing as usual. The wriggling 
of the shoulders will cease ; the body will be found to 
move equably forward ; and comparative ease will be felt. 
On analyzing this fact, he may perceive that the backward 
motion of each arm is simultaneous with the forward mo- 
tion of the corresponding leg ; and, if he will attend to 
his muscular sensations, he will find (what if a mathemati 



AS SEEN IN DANCING AND SEATING. 315 

cian he will recognize as a consequence of the law that 
action and reaction are equal and opposite) that this back- 
ward swing of the arm is a counterbalance to the forward 
swing of the leg ; and that it is easier to produce this 
counterbalance by moving the arm than by contorting the 
body, as he otherwise must do.* 

The action of the arms in walking being thus under- 
stood, it will be manifest that the graceful employment of 
them in dancing is simply a complication of the same 
thing ; and that a good dancer is one having so acute a 
muscular sense as at once to feel in what direction the 
arms should be moved to most readily counterbalance any 
motion of the body or legs. 

This connection between gracefulness and economy of 
force, will be most vividly recognized by those who skate. 
They will remember that all early attempts, and especially 
the first timid experiments in figure skating, are alike 
awkward and fatiguing ; and that the acquirement of skill 
is also the acquirement of ease. The requisite confidence, 
and a due command of the feet having been obtained, 

* A parallel fact, further elucidating this, is supplied by every locomo- 
tive engine. On looking at the driving-wheel, there will be found besides 
the boss to which the connecting rod is attached, a corresponding mass of 
metal on the opposite side of the wheel, and equidistant from the centre ; 
or, if the engine be one having inside cylinders, then, on looking between 
the spokes of the driving-wheel, it will be seen that against each crank is a 
block of iron, similar to it in size, but projecting from the axle in the re- 
verse direction. Evidently, being placed on opposite sides of the centre of 
motion, each crank and its counterbalance move in opposite directions rela- 
tively to the axle ; and by so doing, neutralize each other's perturbing ef- 
fects, and permit a perfectly smooth rotation. Just the same relationship 
that exists between the motions of the counterbalance and the crank, exists 
between the motions of the arms and legs in walking ; and in the early 
days of railway locomotion, before these counterbalance weights were used, 
locomotive driving-wheels were subject to violent oscillations, strictly analo- 
gous to those jerkings of the shoulders that arise when we walk fast with 
out moving our arms. 



316 GEACEFUXXESS. 

those twistings of the trunk and gyrations of the arms, 
previously used to maintain the balance, are found need- 
less ; the body is allowed to follow without control the 
impulse given to it ; the arms to swing where they will ; 
and it is clearly felt that the graceful way of performing 
any evolution is the way that costs least effort. Specta- 
tors can scarcely fail to see the same fact, if they look for 
it. Perhaps there is no case in which they may so dis- 
tinctly perceive that the movements called graceful are 
those which fulfil a given end with the smallest expendi- 
ture of force. 

The reference to skating suggests, that graceful motion 
might be defined as motion in curved lines. Certainly, 
straight and zi^-zao; movements are excluded from the 
conception. The sudden stoppages and irregularities 
which angular movements imply, are its antithesis : for a 
leading element of grace is continuity, flowingness. It 
will be found, however, that this is merely another aspect 
of the same truth ; and that motion in curved lines is eco- 
nomical motion. Given certain successive positions to be 
assumed by a limb, then if it be moved in a straight line 
to the first of these positions, suddenly arrested, and then 
moved in another direction straight to the second position, 
and so on, it is clear that at each arrest, the momentum 
previously given to the limb must be destroyed at a cer- 
tain cost of force, and a new momentum given to it at a 
further cost of force ; whereas, if, instead of arresting the 
limb at its first position, its motion be allowed to continue, 
and a lateral force be impressed upon it to make it div 
towards the second- position, a curvilinear motion is the 
necessary result : and by making use of the original mo- 
mentum, force is economized. 

If the truth of these conclusions respecting gra 
movement be admitted, it cannot, I think*, be doubted, 
that graceful form is that kind of form "\\nich both im 



ITS ASSOCIATION WTTH FORMS. 317 

presses us with the small effort required for self-support, 
and the small effort required for movement. Were it 
otherwise, there would arise the incongruity that graceful 
form would either not be associated at all with graceful 
movement, or that the one would habitually occur in the 
absence of the other ; both which alternatives being quite 
at variance with our experience, we are compelled to con- 
clude that there exists the relationship indicated. Any 
one hesitating to admit this, will, I think, do so no longer 
on remembering that the animals which we consider grace- 
ful, are those so slight in build as not to be burdened by 
their own weight, and those noted for fleetness and agil- 
ity ; while those we class as ungraceful, are those which 
are alike cumbrous and have the faculty of locomotion but 
little developed. In the case of the greyhound, especially, 
we see that the particular modification of the canine type 
in which the economy of weight is the most conspicuous, 
and in which the facility of muscular motion has been 
brought by habit to the greatest perfection, is the one 
which we call most graceful. 

How trees and inanimate objects should ever come to 
have this epithet applied to them, will seem less obvious. 
But the fact that we commonly, and perhaps unavoidably, 
regard all objects under a certain anthropomorphic aspect, 
will, I think, help us to understand it. The stiff branch 
of an oak tree standing out at right angles to the trunk, 
gives us a vague notion of great force expended to keep it 
in that position ; and we call it ungraceful, under the 
same feeling that we call the holding out an arm at right 
angles to the body ungraceful. Conversely, the lax droop- 
ing boughs of a weeping-willow are vaguely associated 
with limbs in easy attitudes — attitudes requiring little 
effort to maintain them : and the term graceful, by which 
we describe these, we apply by metaphor to the w r illow. 

I may as well here, in a few lines, venture the hypoth 



318 GRACEFULNESS. 

esis, that this notion of Grace has its subjective basis in 
Sympathy. The same faculty which makes us shudder on 
seeing another in danger — which sometimes causes motion 
of our own limbs on seeing another struggle or fall, gives 
us a vague participation in all the muscular sensations 
which those around us are experiencing. TThen their 
motions are violent or awkward, we feel in a slight degree 
the disagreeable sensations which we should have were 
they our own. When they are easy, we sympathize with 
the pleasant sensations they imply in those exhibiting 
them. 



IX. 

STATE-TAMPEKINGS WITH MONEY AND 
BANKS. 



AMONG unmitigated rogues, mutual trust is impossi- 
ble. Among people of absolute integrity, mutual 
trust would be unlimited. These are truisms. Given a 
nation made up entirely of liars and thieves, and all trade 
among its members must be carried on either by barter or 
by a currency of intrinsic value : nothing in the shape of 
promises to pay can pass in place of actual payments ; for, 
by the hypothesis, such promises being, never fulfilled, 
will not be taken. On the other hand, given a nation of 
perfectly honest men — men as careful of others' rights as 
of their own — and nearly all trade among its members 
may be carried on by memoranda of debts and claims, 
eventually written off against each other in the books of 
bankers ; seeing that as, by the hypothesis, no man will 
ever issue more memoranda of debts than his goods and 
his claims will liquidate, his paper will pass current for 
whatever it represents : coin will be needed only as a 
measure of value, and to facilitate those small transac- 
tions for which it is physically the most convenient. 
These we take to be self-evident truths. 



320 STATE-TAMPEKIKGS WITH MOXEY AXD BAXKS. 

From them follows the corollary, that in a nation 
neither wholly honest nor wholly dishonest, there may, 
and eventually will, be established a mixed currency — a 
currency partly of intrinsic value, and partly of credit- 
value. The ratio between the quantities of these two 
kinds of currency, will be determined by a combination 
of several causes. 

Supposing that there is no legislative meddling to dis- 
turb the natural balance, it is clear from what has already 
been said, that, fundamentally, the proportion of coin to 
paper will depend on the average conscientiousness of the 
people. Daily experience must ever be teaching each cit- 
izen, which other citizens he can put confidence in, and 
which not. Daily experience must also ever be teaching 
him how for this confidence may be carried. From per 
sonal experiment, and from current opinion which results 
from the experiments of others, every one must learn, 
more or less truly, what credit may safely be given. If 
all find that their neighbours are little to be trusted, but 
few promises-to-pay will circulate. And the circulation 
of promises-to-pay will be great, if all find that the fulfil- 
ment of trading engagements is tolerably certain. The 
degree of honesty characterizing a community, being the 
first regulator of a credit-currency; the second is the do- 
grce of prude?ice. 

Other things equal, it is manifest that among a san- 
guine, speculative people, promissory payments will be 
taken more readily, and will therefore circulate more 
largely, than among a, cautious people. Two men having 
exactly the same experiences of mercantile risks, will, un- 
der the same circumstances, respectively give credit and 
refuse it, if they are respectively rash and circumspect. 
And two nations thus contrasted in prudence, will be sim- 
ilarly contrasted in the relative quantities of notes and 
bills in circulation among them. Xay, they will be mora 



INFLUENCE OF MORAL CAUSES. 321 

than similarly contrasted in this respect ; seeing that the 
prevailing inoantiousness, besides making each citizen un- 
duly ready to give credit, will also produce in him an 
undue readiness to risk his own capital in speculations, 
and a consequent undue demand for credit from other citi- 
zens. There will be both an increased pressure for credit, 
and a diminished resistance ; and therefore a more than 
proportionate excess of paper-currency. Of this national 
characteristic and its consequences, we have a conspicuous 
example in the United States. 

To these comparatively permanent moral causes, on 
which the ordinary ratio of hypothetical to real money in 
a community depends, have to be added certain temporary 
moral and physical causes, which produce temporary va- 
riations in the ratio. The prudence of any people is liable 
to more or less fluctuation. In railway-manias and the 
like, we see that irrational expectations may spread 
through a whole nation, and lead its members to give and 
take credit almost recklessly. But the chief causes of 
temporary variation are those which directly affect the 
quantity of available capital. Wars, deficient harvests, 
or losses consequent on the misfortunes of other nations, 
will, by impoverishing the community, inevitably lead to 
an increase in the ratio of promissory payments to actual 
payments. For what must be done by the citizen disa- 
bled by such causes from meeting his engagements ? — the 
shopkeeper whose custom has greatly fallen off in conse- 
quence of the high price of bread ; or the manufacturer 
whose goods lie in his warerooms unsaleable ; or the 
merchant whose foreign correspondents fail him ? As the 
proceeds of his business do not suffice to liquidate the 
claims on him that are falling due, he is compelled either 
to find other means of liquidating them, or to stop pay 
toent. Rather than stop payment, he will, of course, 
make temporary sacrifices — will give high terms to who- 



822 STATE-TAMPEErN"G-S WITH MOXET AXD BANKS. 

ever will furnisli him with the desired means. If, by de- 
positing securities with his banker, he can get a loan at an 
advanced rate of interest, well. If not, by offering an 
adequate temptation, he may mortgage his property to 
some one having good credit ; who either gives bills, or 
draws on his banker for the sum agreed on. In either 
case, extra promises to pay are issued ; or, if the difficulty 
is met by accommodation-bills, the same result follows. 
And in proportion to the number of citizens obliged to 
resort to one or other of these exj:>edients, must be the in- 
crease of promissory payments in circulation. Reduce the 
proposition to its most general terms, and it becomes self- 
evident. Thus : — All bank-notes, cheques, bills of exchange, 
etc., are so many memoranda of claims ; no matter what 
may be the technical distinctions among them, on which 
upholders of the " currency principle " seek to establish 
their dogma, they all come within this definition. 

Under the ordinary state of tilings, the amount of 
available wealth in the hands, or at the command, of those 
concerned, suffices to meet these claims as they are sever- 
ally presented for payment ; and they are paid either by 
equivalents of intrinsic value, as coin, or by giving in 
place of them other memoranda of claims on somebody 
of undoubted solvency. But now let the amount of avail- 
able wealth in the hands of the community be greatly 
diminished. Suppose a large portion of the necessaries 
of life, or coin, which is the most exchangeable equivalent 
of such necessaries, has been sent abroad to support an 
army, or to subsidize foreign states ; or, suppose that there 
has been a failure in the crops of grain or potatoes. Sup- 
pose, in short, that, for the time being, the nation is im- 
poverished. What follows ? It follows that a proportion 
of the claims cannot be liquidated. And what must hap- 
pen from their non-liquidation ? It must happen that 
those unable to liquidate them will either fail, or they will 



INCREASING THE MEMOEANDA OF CLAIMS. 323 

redeem them by directly or indirectly giving in exchange 
certain memoranda of claims on their stock-in-trade, houses, 
or land. That is, such of these claims as the deficient 
floating capital does not suffice to meet, are replaced by 
claims on fixed capital. The memoranda of claims which 
should have ^appeared by liquidation, reappear in a new 
form ; and the quantity of paper-currency is increased. 
If the war, famine, or other cause of impoverishment con- 
tinues, the process is repeated. Those who have no fur- 
ther fixed capital to mortgage, become bankrupt ; while 
those whose fixed capital admits, mortgage still further, 
and still further increase the promissory payments in cir- 
culation. Manifestly, if the members of a community 
whose annual returns but little more than suffice to meet 
their annual debts, suddenly lose part of their annual re- 
turns, they must become proportionately in debt to each 
other; and the documents expressive of debt must be 
proportionately multiplied. 

This d priori conclusion is in perfect harmony with 
mercantile experience. The last hundred years have fur- 
nished repeated illustrations of its truth. After the enor- 
mous export of gold in l795-'6 for war-loans to Germany, 
and to meet bills drawn on the Treasury by British agents 
abroad ; and after large advances made under a moral 
compulsion by the Bank of England to the Government, 
there followed an excessive issue of bank-notes. In 
17 9 6-' 7, there were failures of the provincial banks; a 
panic in London ; a run on the nearly-exhausted Bank of 
England, and a suspension of cash-payments — a State- 
authorized refusal to redeem promises to pay. In 1800, 
the further impoverishment consequent on a bad harvest, 
joined with the legalized inconvertibility of bank-notes, 
entailed so great a multiplication of them as to cause their 
depreciation. During the temporary peace of 1802, the 
country partly recovered itself, and the Bank of England 



324 STATE-T A MPEKTNGS WITH MOXET AND BANKS. 

would have liquidated the claims on it, had the Govern 
ment allowed. On the subsequent resumption of war, the 
phenomenon was repeated: as in later times it has been on 
each occasion when the community, carried away by irra- 
tional hopes, has locked up an undue proportion of its cap- 
ital in permanent works. 

Moreover, we have still more conclusive illustrations — 
illustrations of the sudden cessation of commercial dis- 
tress and bankruptcy, resulting from a sudden increase of 
credit-circulation. When, in 1793, there came a general 
crash, mainly due to an unsafe banking-system which had 
grown up in the provinces in consequence of the Bank of 
England monopoly — when the pressure, extending to Lon- 
don, became so great as to alarm the Bank-directors and 
to cause them suddenly to restrict their issues, thereby 
producing a frightful multiplication of bankruptcies ; the 
Government (to mitigate an evil indirectly produced by 
legislation) determined to issue Exchequer-Bills to such 
as could give adequate security. That is, they allowed 
hard-pressed citizens to mortgage their fixed capitals for 
equivalents of State-promises to pay, with which to liqui- 
date the demands on them. The effect was magicaL 
£2,202,000 only of Exchequer-Bills were required. The 
consciousness that loans could be had, in many cases pre- 
vented them from being needed. The panic quickly sub- 
sided. And all the loans were very soon repaid. In 
1825, again, when the Bank of England, after having in- 
tensified a panic by extreme restriction of its issues, sud- 
denly changed its policy, and in four days advanced 
£5,000,000 notes on all sorts of securities, the panic at 
once ceased. 

And now, mark two important truths. As just im- 
plied, those expansions of paper-circulation which natu- 
rally take place in times of impoverishment or commercial 
difficulty, are highly salutary. This issuing of securitief 



SALUTARY EXPANSION OF THE CURRENCY. 325 

for future payment when there does not exist the where- 
with for immediate payment, is a means of mitigating na- 
tional disasters. The process amounts to a postponement 
of trading-engagements that cannot at once be met. And 
the alternative questions to be asked respecting it are — 
Shall all the merchants, manufacturers, shopkeepers, etc., 
who, by unwise investments, or war, or famine, or great 
losses abroad, have been in part deprived of the means of 
meeting the claims upon them, be allowed to mortgage 
their fixed capital? or, by being debarred from issuing 
memoranda of claims on their fixed capital, shall they be 
made bankrupts ? On the one hand, if they are permitted 
to avail themselves of that credit which their fellow-citi- 
zens willingly give them on the strength of the proffered 
securities, most of them will tide over their difficulties : in 
virtue of that accumulation of surplus capital ever going 
on, they will be able, by-and-by, to liquidate their debts 
in full. On the other hand, if, as they must else be, they 
are forthwith bankrupted, carrying with them others, and 
these again others, there follows a disastrous loss to all the 
creditors : property to an immense amount being peremp- 
torily sold at a time when there can be comparatively few 
able to buy, must go at a great sacrifice ; and those who 
in a year or two would have been paid in full, must be 
content with 105. in the pound. Added to which evil 
comes the still greater one — an extensive damage to the 
organization of society. Numerous importing, producing, 
and distributing establishments are swept away ; tens of 
thousands of their dependents are left without work ; and 
before the industrial fabric can be repaired, a long time 
must elapse, much labour must lie idle, and great distress 
be borne. Between these alternatives, who, then, can 
pause ? Let this spontaneous remedial process follow its 
own course, and the evil will either be in great measure 
eventually escaped, or will be spread little by little over a 



326 STATE-TAMPEErXGS WITH MOXEY AXD BAXE3. 

considerable period. Stop this remedial process, and the 
whole evil, falling at once on society, will bring wide- 
spread ruin and misery. 

The second of these important truths, is, that an ex- 
panded circulation of promises to pay, caused by absolute 
or relative impoverishment, contracts to its normal limits 
as fast as the need for expansion disappears. For the 
conditions of the case imply, that all who have mortgaged 
their fixed capitals to obtain the means of meeting their 
engagements, have done so on very unfavourable terms ; 
and are therefore under a strong stimulus to pay off their 
mortgages as quickly as possible. Every one who, at a 
time of commercial pressure, gets a loan from a bank, has 
to give high interest. Hence, as fast as prosperity re- 
turns, and his profits accumulate, he gladly escapes this 
heavy tax by repaying the loan : in doing which he takes 
back to the bank as large a number of its promises to pay 
as he originally received ; and so diminishes the note- 
circulation as much as his original transaction had in- 
creased it. Considered apart from technical distinctions, 
a banker performs, in such case, the function of an agent 
in whose name traders issue negotiable memo rand 
claims on their estates. The agent is already known to 
the public as one who issues memoranda of claims on cap- 
ital that is partly floating and partly fixed — memoranda 
of claims that have an established character, and are con- 
venient in their amounts. What the agent does under 
the circumstances specified, is to issue more such memo- 
randa of claims, on the security of more fixed, and par- 
tially-fixed, capital put in his possession. His clients hy- 
pothecate their estates through the banker, instead of do- 
in <x it in their own names, simply because of the facilities 
which he has and which they have not. And as the 
banker requires to be paid for his agency and his risk, his 
clients redeem their estates, and close these special trans 



MIXED CURRENCY SELF-ADJUSTING. 327 

actions with Mm, as quickly as they can : thereby dimin- 
ishing the amount of credit-currency. 

Thus we see that the balance of a mixed currency is, 
under all circumstances, self-adjusting. Supposing con- 
siderations of physical convenience out of the question, 
the average ratio of paper to coin is primarily dependent 
on the average trustworthiness of the people, and seconda- 
rily dependent on their average prudence. When, in con- 
sequence of unusual prosperity, there is an unusual in- 
crease in the number of mercantile transactions, there is a 
corresponding increase in the quantity of currency, both 
metallic and paper, to meet the requirement. And when 
from war, famine, or over-investment, the available wealth 
in the hands of citizens is insufficient to pay their debts 
to each other, the memoranda of debts in circulation ac- 
quire an increased ratio to the quantity of gold : to de- 
crease again as fast as the excess of debts can be liqui- 
dated. 

That these self-regulating processes act but imperfectly, 
is doubtless true. With an imperfect humanity, they can- 
not act otherwise than imperfectly. People who are dis- 
honest, or rash, or stupid, will inevitably suffer the penal- 
ties of dishonesty, or rashness, or stupidity. If any think 
that by some patent legislative mechanism, a society of 
bad citizens can be made to work together as well as a 
society of good ones, we shall not take pains to show 
them the contrary. If any think that the dealings of men 
deficient in uprightness and foresight, may be so regula- 
ted by cunningly-devised Acts of Parliament, as to secure 
the effects of uprightness and foresight, we have nothing 
to say to them. Or if there are any (and we fear there 
are numbers) who think that in times of commercial diffi- 
culty, resulting from impoverishment or other natural 
causes, the evil can be staved-off by some ministerial 
6leight of hand, we despair of convincing them that the 



328 STATE-TAMPEBJNGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 

thing is impossible. See it or not, however, the truth is, 
that the State can do none of these things. As we shall 
show, the State can, and sometimes does, produce com- 
mercial disasters. As we shall also show, it can, and 
sometimes does, exacerbate the commercial disasters oth- 
erwise produced. But while it can create and can make 
worse, it cannot prevent. 

All which the State has to do in the matter, is to dis- 
charge its ordinary office — to administer justice. The en- 
forcement of contracts is one of the functions included in 
its general function of maintaining the rights of citizens. 
And among other contracts which it is called on to en- 
force, are the contracts expressed on credit-documents — 
bills of exchange, cheques, bank-notes. If any one issues 
a promise-to-pay, cither on demand or at specified date, 
and does not fulfil that promise, the State, when appealed 
to by the creditor, is bound in its protective capacity to 
obtain fulfilment of the promise, at whatever cost to the 
debtor; or such partial fulfilment of it as his effects suf- 
fice for. The State's duty in the case of the currency, as 
in other cases, is sternly to threaten the penalty of bank- 
ruptcy on all who make engagements which they cannot 
meet ; and sternly to inflict the penalty when called on by 
those aggrieved. If it fills short of this, mischief ensues. 
If it exceeds this, mischief ensues. Let us glance at the 
facts. 

Had we space to tra...e in detail the history of the Bank 
of England — to show Low the privileges contained in its 
first charter were bribes given by a distressed Govern- 
ment in want of a large loan — how, soon afterwards, the 
law which forbad a partnership of more than six persons 
from becoming bankers, was passed to prevent the issue 
of notes by the South-Sea Company, and so to preserve 
the Bank-monopoly — how the continuance of State-favours 



BANK OF ENGLAND MONOPOLY. 329 

to the Bank-corresponded with the continuance of the 
Bank's claims on the State ; we should see that, from the 
first, banking-legislation has been an organized injustice. 
But passing over earlier periods, let us begin with the 
events that closed the last century. Our rulers of that 
day had entered into a war — whether with adequate rea- 
son, needs not here be discussed. They had lent vast 
sums of gold to their allies. They had demanded large 
advances from the Bank of England, which the Bank durst 
not refuse. They had thus necessitated an excessive issue 
of notes by the Bank. That is, they had so greatly di- 
minished the floating capital of the community, that en- 
gagements could not be met, and an immense number of 
promises-to-pay took the place of actual payments. Soon 
after, the fulfilment of these promises became so difficult 
that it was forbidden by law ; that is, cash-payments were 
suspended. Now for these results — for the national im- 
poverishment and consequent abnormal condition of the 
currency, the State was responsible. 

How much of the blame lay with the governing classes, 
and how much with the nation at large, we do not pretend 
to say. What it concerns us here to note, is, that the 
calamity arose from the acts of the ruling power. When, 
again, in 1802, after a short peace, the available capital of 
the community had so far increased that the redemption 
of promises-to-pay became possible, and the Bank of Eng- 
land was anxious to begin redeeming them, the legislature 
interposed its veto ; and so continued the evils of an in- 
convertible paper-currency after they would naturally have 
ceased. Still more disastrous, however, were the results that 
by-and-by ensued from State-meddlings. Cash-payments 
having been suspended — the Government, instead of en- 
forcing all contracts, having temporarily cancelled a great 
part cf them, by saying to every banker, "Yea shall not 
be called on to liquidate in coin the promises-to-pay which 



330 STATE-TAMPEEIXGS WITH MONEY AXD BANKS. 

you issue," the natural checks to the multiplication of prom- 
ises-to-pay, disappeared. TThat followed? Banks being 
no longer required to cash their notes in coin, and easily 
obtaining from the Bank of England supplies of its notes 
in exchange for fixed securities, were ready to make ad- 
vances to almost any extent. Xot being obliged to raise 
their rate of discount in consequence of the diminution of 
their available capital, and reaping a profit by every loan 
(of notes) made on fixed capital, there arose both an ab- 
normal facility of borrowing, and an abnormal desire to 
lend. Thus were fostered the wild speculations of 1S09 — 
speculations that were not only thus fostered, but were iu 
great measure caused by the previous cver-issue of notes ; 
which, by further exaggerating the natural rise of prices, 
increased the apparent profitableness of investments. 

And all this, be it remembered, took place at a time 
when there should have been rigid economy — at a time 
of impoverishment consequent on continued war — at a 
time when, but for law-produced illusions, there would 
have been commercial straitness and a corresponding care- 
fulness. Just wh^n its indebtedness was unusually great, 
the community was induced still further to increase its 
indebtedness. Clearly, then, the prog] ..cumula- 

tion and depreciation of promises-to-pay, and the commer- 
cial disasters which finally resulted from it in lSl-l-'lo-'lG, 
when ninety provincial banks were broken and more dis- 
solved, were State-produced evils : partly due to a war 
which, whether necessary or not, was carried on by the 
Government, and greatly exacerbated by the currency 
regulations which that Government had made. 

Before passing to more recent tacts, let us parentheti- 
cally notice the similarly-caused degradation of the cur- 
rency which had previously arisen in Ireland. When 
examined by a parliamentary committee in 1S04, Mr. Col- 
ville, one of the directors of the Bank of Ireland, stateJ 



CASE OF THE BANK OF IRELAND. 331 

that before the passing of the Irish Bank-Restriction-Bill 
— the bill by which cash-payments were suspended — the 
directors habitually met any unusual demand for gold, by 
diminishing their issues. That is to say, in the ordinary 
course of business, they raised their rate of discount 
whenever the demand enabled them, and so, both increased 
their profits and warded off the danger of bankruptcy. 
During this unregulated period, their note-circulation was 
between £600,000 and £700,000. But as soon as they 
were guaranteed by law against the danger of bankrupt- 
cy, their circulation began rapidly to increase, and very 
soon reached £3,000,000. The results, as proved before 
the committee, were these : The exchange with England 
became greatly depressed ; nearly all the good specie was 
exported to England ; it was replaced in Dublin (where 
small notes could not be issued) by a base coinage, adul- 
terated to the extent of fifty per cent., and elsewhere it 
was replaced by notes payable at twenty-one days' date, 
issued by all sorts of persons, for sums down even as low 
as sixpence. 

And this excessive multiplication of small notes was 
necessitated by the impossibility of otherwise carrying on 
retail trade, after the disappearance of the silver coinage. 
For these disastrous effects, then, legislation was responsi- 
ble. The swarms of " silver-notes" resulted from the ex- 
portation of silver ; the exportation of silver was due to 
the great depression of the exchange with England ; this 
great depression arose from the excessive issue of notes 
by the Bank of Ireland, and this excessive issue followed 
from their legalized inconvertibility. Yet, though these 
facts were long ago established by a committee of the 
House of Commons, the defenders of the " currency-princi- 
ple" are actually blind enough to cite this multiplication 
of sixpenny-promises-to-pay, as proving the evils of an 
unregulated currency ! 



332 STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH MONET AXD EAXKS. 

Returning now to the case of the Bank of England 
let us pass at once to the Act of 1844. While still a pro- 
tectionist — while still a believer in the beneficence of law 
as a controller of commerce — Sir Robert Peel undertook 
to stop the recurrence of monetary crises, like those of 
1825, 1836, and 1839. Overlooking the truth that, when 
not caused by the meddlings of legislators, a monetary 
crisis is due, either to an absolute impoverishment, or to a 
relative impoverishment consequent on speculative over- 
investment; and that for the bad season or the impru- 
dence causing this, there is no remedy; he boldly pro- 
claimed that " it is better to prevent the paroxysm than to 
excite it y " and he brought forward the Bank-Act of 1844, 
as the means of prevention. How merciless has been 
Nature's criticism on this remnant of Protectionism, we 
all know. The monetary sliding-scale has been as great a 
failure as its prototype. Within three years arose one of 
these crises which were to have been prevented. Within 
another ten years has arisen a second of these crises. 
And on both occasions this intended safeguard lias so in- 
tensified the evil, that a temporary repeal of it has been 
imperative. 

We should have thought that, even without facts, 
every one might have seen that it is impossible, by Act of 
Parliament, to prevent imprudent peoj>le from doing im- 
prudent things ; and, if facts were needed, we should 
have thought that our commercial history up to 1S44 sup- 
plied a sufficiency. But a superstitious faith in State-ordi- 
nances is regardless of such facts. And we doubt not 
that even now, though there have been two glaring fail- 
ures of this professed check on over-speculation — though 
the evidence conclusively shows that the late commercial 
catastrophes have had nothing whatever to do with the 
issue of bank-notes, but, as in the case of the Western 
Bank of Scotland, occurred along with diminished issues— 



CEISIS W HAMBURGH. 333 

and though in Hamburgh, where the " currency-princi- 
ple" has been rigidly carried out to the very letter, there 
has been a worse crisis than anywhere else ; yet there will 
remain plenty of believers in the efficiency of Sir R. Peel's 
prophylactic. 

But, as already said, the measure has not only failed : 
it has made worse the panics it was to have warded off. 
And it was sure to do this. As shown at the outset, the 
multiplication of promises-to-pay that occurs at a period 
ot impoverishment caused by war, famine, over-invest- 
ment, or losses abroad, is a salutary process of mitigation 
— is a mode of postponing actual payments till actual pay- 
ments are possible — is a preventive of wholesale bank- 
ruptcy — is a spontaneous act of self-preservation. We 
pointed out, not only that this is an d priori conclusion, 
but that many facts in our own mercantile history illus- 
trate at once the naturalness, the benefits, the necessity of 
it. And if this conclusion needs enforcing by further evi- 
dence, we have it in the recent events at Hamburgh. In 
that city, there are no notes in circulation but such as are 
represented by actual equivalents of bullion or jewels in 
the bank : no one is allowed, as with us, to obtain bank 
promises-to-pay in return for securities. Hence it resulted 
that when the Hamburgh merchants, lacking their remit- 
tances from abroad, were suddenly deprived of the where- 
with to meet their engagements, and were prevented by 
law from getting bank-promises-to-pay by pawning their 
estates ; bankruptcy swept them away wholesale. And 
what finally happened ? To prevent universal ruin, the 
Government was obliged to decree that all bills of ex- 
change coming due, should have a month's grace ; and 
that there should be immediately formed a State-Discount 
Bank — an office for issuing State-promises-to-pay in return 
for securities. That is, having first by its restrictive law 
ruined a host of merchants, the Government was obliged 



334 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 

to legalize that postponement of payments, which, but for 
its law, would have spontaneously taken place. 

"With such further confirmation of an d priori conclu- 
sion, can it be doubted that our late commercial difficul- 
ties were intensified by the measure of 1844 ? Is it not, 
indeed, notorious in the City, that the progressively-in- 
creasing demand for accommodation, was in great part 
due to the conviction that, in consequence of the Bank- 
Act, there would shortly be no accommodation at all? 
Does not every London merchant know that his neigh- 
bours who had bills coming due, and who saw that by the 
time they were due the Bank would discount only at still 
higher rates, or not at all, decided to lay in beforehand 
the means of meeting those bills ? Is it not an established 
fact, that the hoarding thus induced, not only rendered 
the pressure on the Bank greater than it would otherwise 
have been, but, by taking both gold and notes out of cir- 
culation, made the Bank's issues temporarily useless to the 
general public ? Did it not happen in this case, as in 1793 
and 1825, that when at last restriction was removed, the 
mere consciousness that loans could be had, itself prevented 
them from being required ? And, indeed, is not the sim- 
ple fact that the panic quickly subsided when the Act was 
suspended, sufficient proof that the Act had, in great 
measure, produced it. 

See, then, for what we have to thank legislative med- 
dling. During ordinary times Sir B. Peel's Act, by oblig- 
ing the Bank of England, and occasionally provincial 
banks, to keep more gold than they would otherwise have 
kept (and if it has not done this it has done nothing), has 
inflicted a tax on the nation to the extent of the interest 
on such portion of the gold-currency as was in excess ol 
the need : a tax which, in the course of the last thirteen 
years, has probably amounted to some millions. And 
then, on the two occasions when there have arisen th« 



DRAINAGE OF GOLD. 335 

crises that were to have been prevented, the Act, after 
having intensified the pressure, made bankrupt a great 
number of respectable firms that would else have stood, 
and increased the distress not only of the trading but of 
the working population ; has been twice abandoned at the 
moment when its beneficence was to have been conspic- 
uous. It has been a cost, a mischief, and a failure. Yet 
such is the prevailing delusion, that, judging from appear- 
ances, it will be maintained ! 

" But," ask our opponents, " shall the Bank be allowed 
to let gold drain out of the country without check ? Shall 
it have permission to let its reserve of gold diminish so 
greatly as to risk the convertibility of its notes ? Shall it 
be enabled recklessly to increase its issues, and so produce 
a depreciated paper-currency ? " 

Really, in these Free-trade days, it seems strange, to 
have to answer questions like these ; and, were it not for 
the confusion of facts and ideas that legislation has pro- 
duced, it would be inexcusable to ask them. 

In the first place, the common notion that the draining 
of gold out of the country is intrinsically, and in all cases, 
an evil, is nothing but a political superstition — a supersti- 
tion in part descended from the antique fallacy that money 
is the only wealth, and in part from the maxims of an ar- 
tificial, law-produced state of things, under which the ex- 
portation of gold really was a, sign of a corrupted cur- 
rency : we mean, during the suspension of cash-payments. 
Law having cancelled millions of contracts which it was 
its duty to enforce— law having absolved bankers from 
liquidating their promises in coin, having rendered it need- 
less to keep a stock of coin with which to liquidate them, 
and having thus taken away that natural check which 
prevents the over-issue and depreciation of notes — law 
having partly suspended that home demand for gold which 
ordinarily competes with and balances the foreign de- 
15 



336 STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH" MONEY AXD BAXKS. 

mand, there resulted an abnormal exportation of gold. 
By-and-by, it was seen tbat this efflux of gold was a con- 
sequence of the over-issue of notes ; and that the accom- 
panying high price of gold, as paid for in notes, proved 
the depreciation of notes. And then it became an estab- 
lished doctrine, that an adverse state of the foreign ex- 
changes, indicating a drain of gold, was significant of an 
excessive circulation of notes ; and that the issue of notes 
should be regulated by the state of the exchanges. 

This unnatural condition of the currency having con- 
tinued for a quarter of a century, the concomitant doc- 
trine rooted itself in the general mind. And now mark 
one of the multitudinous evils of legislative meddling. 
This artificial test, good only for an artificial state, has 
survived the return to a natural state, and men's ideas 
about currency have been reduced by it to chronic confu 
sion. 

The truth is, that while, during a legalized inconverti- 
bility of bank-notes, an efflux of gold may, and often does, 
indicate an excessive issue of bank-notes ; under ordinary 
circumstances, an efflux of gold has little or nothing to do 
with the issue of bank-notes, but is determined by purely 
mercantile causes. And the truth is, that so far from an 
efflux of gold thus brought about by mercantile cm 
being an evil, it is a good. Leaving out of the question, 
as of course we must, such exportations of gold as take 
place for the support of armies abroad, the cause of efflux 
is either an actual plethora of all commodities, gold in- 
cluded, which results in gold being sent out of the coun- 
try for the purpose of foreign investment, or else an abun- 
dance of ^old as compared with other leading commodi- 
ties. And while, in this last ease, the efflux of gold indi- 
cates some absolute or relative impoverishment of the na- 
tion, it is a means of mitigating the bad consequences ol 
that impoverishment. 



GOLD AS A COMMODITY. 337 

Consider the question as one of political economy, and 
this truth becomes obvious. Thus : The nation habitually 
requires for use and consumption certain quantities of 
commodities, of which gold is one. These commodities 
are severally and collectively liable to fall short, either 
from deficient harvests, from waste in war, from losses 
abroad, or from too great a diversion of labour or capital 
in some special direction. When a scarcity of some chief 
commodity or necessary occurs, what is the remedy ? The 
commodity of which there is an excess (or if none is in 
excess, then that which can best be spared) is exported in 
exchange for an additional supply of the deficient com- 
modity. And, indeed, the whole of our foreign trade, 
alike in ordinary and extraordinary times, consists in this 
process. But when it happens either that the commodity 
which we can best spare is not wanted abroad, or (as re- 
cently) that a chief foreign customer is temporarily disa- 
bled from buying, or that the commodity which we can 
best spare is gold, then gold itself is exported in exchange 
for the thing which we most want. Whatever form the 
transaction takes, it is nothing but bringing the supplies 
of various commodities into harmony with the demands 
for them. The fact that gold is exported, is simply a 
proof that the need for gold is less than the need for other 
things. Under such circumstances an efflux of gold will 
continue, and ought to continue, until other things have 
become relatively so abundant, and gold relatively so 
scarce, that the demand for gold is equal to other demands. 
And he who would prevent this process, is about as wise 
as the miser, who, finding his house without food, chooses 
to starve rather than draw upon his purse. 

The second question — " Shall the Bank have permission 
to let its reserve of gold diminish so greatly as to risk the 
convertibility of its notes?" is not more profound than 
the first. It may fitly be answered by the more genera] 



338 STATE-TAMPERIKGS WITH MOXEY AND BAXKB. 

question — "Shall the merchant, the manufacturer, or the 
shopkeeper, be allowed so to invest his capital as to risk 
the fulfilment of his engagements?" If the answer to the 
first be " No," it must be "Xo" to the second. If to the 
second it be " Yes," it must be " Yes " to the first. Any 
one who proposed that the State should oversee the trans- 
actions of every trader, so as to insure his ability to cash 
all demands as they fell due, might with consistency argue 
that bankers should be under like control. But while no 
one has the folly to contend for the one, nearly all contend 
for the other. One would think that the banker acquired, 
in virtue of his occupation, some abnormal desire to ruin 
himself — that while traders in other tilings are restrained 
by a wholesome dread of bankruptcy, traders in capital 
have a longing to appear in the Gaa t f <\ which law alone 
can prevent them from gratifying ! Surely the moral 
checks which act on other men will act on bankers. And 
if these moral checks do not suffice to produce perfect se- 
curity, we have ample proof that no cunning legislative 
checks will supply their place. The current notion that 
bankers can, and will, if allowed, issue notes to any extent, 
is one of the absurdest illusions — an illusion, however, 
which would never have arisen but for the vicious over- 
issues induced by law. 

The truth is, that in the first place, a banker ea/uiot 
increase his issue of notes at will: it has been proved by 
the unanimous testimony of all bankers who have been 
examined before successive parliamentary committees, that 
" the amount of their issues is exclusively regulated by 
the extent of local dealings and expenditure in their re- 
spective districts;" and that any notes issued in excess oi 
the demand are "immediately returned to them." And 
the truth is, in the second place, that a banker icill a 
the average of eases, issue more notes than in his judg- 
ment it is safe to issue ; seeing that if his promises-to-paj 



THE BUGBEAR OF DEPKECIATKXN". 339 

in circulation, are greatly in excess of his available means 
of paying them, he runs an imminent risk of having to 
stop payment — a result, of which he has no less a horror 
than other men. If facts are needed in proof of this, they 
are furnished by the history of both the Bank of England 
and the Bank of Ireland ; which, before they were de- 
bauched by the State, habitually regulated their issues 
according to t?heir stock of bullion, and would probably 
always have been still more careful, but for the conscious- 
ness that there was the State-credit to fall back upon. 

The third question — " Shall the Bank be allowed to 
issue notes in such numbers as to cause their deprecia- 
tion ?" has, in effect, been answered in answering the first 
two. There can be no depreciation of notes so long as 
they are exchangeable for gold on demand. And so long 
as the State, in discharge of its duty, insists on the fulfil- 
ment of contracts, the alternative of bankruptcy must 
ever be a restraint on such over-issue of notes as endangers 
that exchangeability. The truth is, that the bugbear of 
depreciation is one that would have been unknown but for 
the sins of governments. In the case of America, where 
there have been occasional depreciations, the sin has been 
a sin of omission : the State has not enforced the fulfil- 
ment of contracts — has not forthwith bankrupted those 
who failed to cash their notes ; and, if accounts are true, 
has allowed those to be mobbed who brought back far- 
wandering notes for payment.* In all other cases, the sin 
has been a sin of commission. The depreciated paper- 
currency in France, during the revolution, was a State- 
currency. The depreciated paper-currensies of Austria 
and Russia, have been State-currencies. And the only 
depreciated paper-currency we have known, has been to 
all intents and purposes a State-currency. It was the 

* This was written in 1858 ; when " greenbacks" were unknown. 



34:0 STATE-TAMPEEINGS WTTH MONEY A^sT> BANKS. 

State which, in 1795-6, forced upon th: Bank of England 
that excessive issue of notes which led to the suspension 
of cash-payments. It was the State which, in 1802, for- 
bad the resumption of cash-payments, when the Bank of 
England, wished to resume them. It was the State which, 
during a quarter of a century, maintained that suspension 
of cash-payments from which the excessive multiplication 
and. depreciation of notes resulted. The entire corruption 
was entailed by State-expenditure, and established by 
State-warrant. Yet now, the State affects a virtuous hor- 
ror of the crime committed at its instigation ! Having 
contrived to shuffle-off the odium on to the shoulders of 
its tools, the State gravely lectures the banking-commu- 
nity upon its guilt ; and with sternest face passes meas- 
ures to prevent it from sinning ! 

We contend, then, that neither to restrain the efflux 
of gold, nor to guard against the over-issue of bank-notes, 
is legislative interference warranted. If Government will 
promptly execute the law against all defaulters, the self- 
interest of bankers and traders will do the rest : such 
evils as would still result from mercantile dishonesties and 
imprudences, being evils which legal regulation may aug- 
ment but cannot prevent. Let the Bank of England, in 
common with every other bank, simply consult its own 
safety and its own profits, and there will result just as 
much check as should be put, on the efflux of gold or the 
circulation of paper ; and the only check that can be put 
on the doings of speculators. Whatever leads to unusual 
draughts on the resources of banks, immediately causes a 
rise in the rate of discount — a rise dictated both by the 
wish to make increased profits, and the wish to avoid a 
dangerous decrease of resources. This raised rate of dis- 
count prevents the demand from being so great as it would 
else have been — alike checks undue expansion of the note- 
circulation ; stops speculators from making further engage- 



SALUTARY EFFECTS OF A CRISIS. 341 

ments, and, if gold is being exported, diminishes the profit 
of exportation. Successive rises successively increase 
these effects, until eventually none will give the rate of 
discount demanded, save those in peril of stopping pay- 
ment ; the increase of the credit-currency ceases, and the 
efflux of gold, if it is going on, is arrested by the home- 
demand outbalancing the foreign demand. And if in 
times of great pressure, and under the temptation of high 
discounts, banks allow their circulation to expand to a 
somewhat dangerous extent, the course is justified by the 
necessities. As shown at the outset, the process is one 
by which banks, on the deposit of good securities, loan 
their credit to traders who but for loans would be bank- 
rupt. And that banks should run some risks to save hosts 
of solvent men from inevitable ruin, few will deny. 
Moreover, during a crisis which thus runs its natural 
course, there will really occur that purification of the 
mercantile world, which many think can be effected only 
by some Act-of-Parliament ordeal. Under the circum- 
stances described, men who have adequate securities to 
offer, will get bank-accommodation ; but those who, hav- 
ing traded without capital or beyond their means, have 
not, will be denied it, and will fail. Under a free system, 
the good will be sifted from the bad ; whereas the exist- 
ing restrictions on bank-accommodations, tend to destroy 
good and bad together. 

Thus it is not true that there need be special regulations 
to prevent the inconvertibility and depreciation of notes. 
It is not true that but for legislative supervision, bankers 
would let gold drain out of the country to an undue ex- 
tent. It is not true that these " currency theorists " have 
discovered a place at which the body-politic would bleed 
to death, but for a State-styptic. 

What else we have to say on the general question, may 



342 STATE-TAMPEEIXGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 

best be joined with some commentaries on provincial and 
joint-stock banking, to which let us now turn. 

Government, to preserve the Bank-of-England-monop- 
oly, having enacted that no partnership exceeding six per- 
sons should become bankers, and the Bank of England 
having refused to establish branches in the provinces, it 
happened, during the latter half of the last century, when 
the industrial progress was rapid and banks much needed, 
that numerous private traders, shopkeepers, and others, 
began to issue notes payable on demand. And when, of 
the four hundred small banks which had thus grown up in 
less than fifty years, a great number gave way under the 
first pressure — when on several subsequent occasions like 
results occurred — when in Ireland, where the Bank-of-Ire- 
laud-monopoly had been similarly guaranteed, it happened 
that out of fifty private provincial banks, forty became 
bankrupt — and when, finally, it grew notorious that in 
Scotland, where there had been no law limiting the num- 
ber of partners, a whole century had passed with scarcely 
a single bank-failure, legislators at length decided to abol- 
ish the restriction which had entailed such mischiefs. 
Having, to use Mr. Mill's words, " actually made the 
formation of safe banking-establishments a punishable of- 
fence" — having, for one hundred and twenty years, main- 
tained a law which first caused great inconvenience and 
then extensive ruin, time after time repeated ; Govern- 
ment in 1826 conceded the liberty of joint-stock banking : 
a liberty which the good easy public, not distinguishing 
between a right done and a wrong undone, regarded as a 
great boon. 

But the liberty was not without conditions. Having 
previously, in anxiety for its protect', the Bank of Eng- 
land, been reckless of the banking-security of the commu- 
nity at large, the State, like a repentant sinner rushing 
into asceticism, all at once became extremely solicitous on 






EFFECTS OF LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE. 343 

this point, and determined to put guarantees of its own 
devising, in place of the natural guarantee of mercantile 
judgment. To intending bank-shareholders it said — " You 
shall not unite on such publicly-understood conditions as 
you think fit, and get such confidence as will naturally come 
to you on those conditions." And to the public it said— 
" You should not put trust in this or that association in 
proportion as, from the character of its members and con- 
stitution, you judge it to be worthy of trust. 1 ' But to 
both it said — " You shall the one give, and the other re- 
ceive, my infallible safeguards." 

And now what have been the results? Every one 
knows that these safeguards have proved any thing but 
infallible. Every one knows that these banks with State- 
constitutions have been especially characterized by insta- 
bility. Every one knows that credulous citizens, with a 
faith in legislation which endless disappointments fail to 
diminish, have trusted implicitly in these law-devised se- 
curities, and, not exercising their own judgments, have 
been led into ruinous undertakings. The evils of substi- 
tuting artificial guarantees for natural ones, which the 
clear-sighted long ago discerned, have, by the late catas- 
trophes, been made conspicuous to all. 

When commencing this article, we had intended to 
dwell on this point. For though the mode of business 
which brought about these joint-stock-bank-failures, was, 
for weeks after their occurrence, time after time clearly de- 
scribed, yet nowhere did we see drawn the obvious corol- 
lary. Though in three separate City-articles of The 
Times, it was explained that, "relying upon the ultimate 
liability of large bodies of infatuated shareholders, the 
discount houses supply these banks with unlimited means, 
looking not to the character of the bills sent up, but sim- 
ply to the security afforded by the Bank endorsement ; " 
yet in none of them was it pointed out that, but for the 



344 STATE-TA]\IPEEraGS WITH MOXEY AM) BAKES. 

law of unlimited liability, this reckless trading would not 
have gone on. More recently, however, this truth has 
been duly recognized, alike in Parliament and in the 
Press, and it is therefore needless further to elucidate it. 
We will simply add, that as, if there had been no law of 
unlimited liability, the London houses would not have dis- 
counted these bad bills ; and as, in that case, these pro- 
vincial joint-stock-banks could not have given these enor- 
mous credits to insolvent speculators ; and as, if they had 
not done this, they would not have been mined ; it fol- 
lows, inevitably, that these joint-stock-bank-failures have 
been law-produced disasters. 

A measure for further increasing the safety <>i the pro- 
vincial public, was that which limited the circulation of 
provincial bank-notes. At the same time that it estab- 
lished a slidimx-scale for the issues of the Bank of Eng- 
land, the Act of 1844 fixed the maximum circulation ol 
every provincial bank-of-issue, and forbad any further 
banks-of-issue. We have not space to discuss at length 
the effects of this restriction : which must have fallen 
rather hardly on those especially-careful bankers who had, 
during the twelve weeks preceding the 2 7th April, 1S44, 
narrowed their issues to meet any incidental contingen- 
cies ; while it gave a perennial license to such as had 
been incautious during that period. All which we can 
notice is, that this rigorous limitation of provincial if 
to a low maximum (and a low maximum was purposely 
fixed) effectually prevents those local expansions of bank- 
note circulation, which, as we have shown, ought to take 
place in periods of commercial difficulty. And further, 
that by transferring all local demands to the Bank of Eng- 
land, as the only place from which extra accommodation 
can be had, the tendency is to concentrate a pressure 
which would else be diffused ; and so to create panic. 

Saying nothing more, however, respecting the impolicy 



TEMPTATIONS OF BANKERS. 345 

of the measure, let us mark its futility. As a means of 
preserving the convertibility of the provincial bank-note, 
it is useless unless it acts as some safeguard against bank- 
failures, and that it does not do this is demonstrable. 
While it diminishes the likelihood of failures caused by 
over-issue of notes, it increases the likelihood of failures 
from other causes. For what will be done by a provincial 
banker whose issues are restricted by the Act of 1844, to 
a level lower than that to which he would otherwise have 
let them rise ? If he would, but for the law, have issued 
more notes than he now does — if his reserve is greater 
than, in his judgment, is needful for the security of his 
notes, is it not clear that he will simply extend his opera- 
tions in other directions ? Will not the excess of his 
available capital be to him a warrant either for entering 
into larger speculations himself, or for allowing his cus- 
tomers to draw on him beyond the limit he would else 
have fixed ? If, in the absence of restriction, his rashness 
would have led him to risk bankruptcy by over-issue, will 
it not now equally lead him to risk bankruptcy by over- 
banking ? And is not the one kind of bankruptcy as fatal 
to the convertibility of notes as the other ? 

Nay, the case is even worse. There is reason to be- 
lieve that bankers are tempted into greater dangers under 
this protective system. They can and will hypothecate 
their capital in ways less direct than by notes, and may 
very likely be led, by the unobtrusiveness of the process, 
to commit themselves more than they would else do. A 
trader, applying to his banker in times of commercial dif- 
ficulty, will often be met by the reply — " I cannot make 
you any direct advances, having already loaned as much 
as I can spare, but knowing you to be a safe man, I will 
lend you my name. Here is my acceptance for the sum 
you require : they will discount it for you in London." 
Now, as loans thus made do not entail the same imme- 



846 STATE-TAMPERESTGS WITH MOXET AND BAXKS. 

diate responsibilities as when made in notes (seeing that 
they are neither at once payable, nor do they add to the 
dangers of a possible run), a banker is under a temptation 
to extend his liabilities in this way much farther than he 
would have done had not law forced him to discover a 
new channel through which to give credit. 

And does not the evidence that has lately transpired 
go to show that these roundabout ways of giving credit 
do take the place of the interdicted ways ; and that they 
are more dangerous than the interdicted ways ? Is it not 
notorious that dangerous forms of paper-currency have 
had an unexampled development since the Act of 1844? 
Do not the newspapers and the debates give daily proofs 
of this ? And is not the process of causation obvious ? 

Indeed, it might have been known, d priori, that such 
a result was sure to take place. It has been shown con- 
clusively that, when uninterfered with, the amount of 
note-circulation at any given time is determined by the 
amount of trade going on — the quantity of payments that 
are being made. It has been repeatedly testified before 
committee, that when any local banker contracts his is- 
sues, he simply causes an equivalent increase in the issues 
of neighbouring bankers. And in past times it has been 
more than once complained, that when from prudential 
motives the Bank of England withdrew part of its notes, 
the provincial bankers immediately multiplied their notes 
to a proportionate extent. "Well, is it not manifest that 
this inverse variation, which holds between one class of 
bank-notes and another, also holds between bank-notes 
and other forms of paper-currency ? Will it not happen 
that just as diminishing the note-circulation of one bank, 
merely adds to the note-circulation of other banks ; so, an 
artificial restriction on the circulation of bank-notes in 
general, will simply cause an increased circulation of some 
substituted kind of promise-to-pay? And is not this fctib- 



NA.TUKAL SAFE&TTAKDS PREVENTED. 347 

stituted kind, in virtue of its novelty and irregularity, 
likely to be a more unsafe kind ? See, then, the predica- 
ment. Over all the bills of exchange, cheques, etc., which 
constitute nine-tenths of the paper-currency of the king- 
dom, the State exercises, and can exercise, no control. 
And the limit it puts on the remaining tenth, vitiates the 
other nine-tenths, by causing an abnormal growth of new 
forms of credit, which experience proves to be especially 
dangerous. 

Thus, all which the State does when it exceeds its true 
duty, is to hinder, to disturb, to corrupt. As already 
pointed out, the quantity of credit men will give each 
other, is determined by natural causes, moral and physi- 
cal — their average characters, their temporary states of 
feeling, their circumstances. If the Government forbids 
one mode of giving credit, they will find another, and 
probably a worse. Be the degree of mutual trust prudent 
or imprudent, it must take its course. The attempt to 
restrict it by law is nothing but a repetition of the old 
story of keeping out the sea with a fork. 

And now mark, that were it not for these worse than 
futile State-safeguards, there might grow up certain nat- 
ural safeguards, which would really put a check on undue 
credit and abnormal speculation. Were it not for the at- 
tempts to insure security by law, it is very possible that, 
under our high-pressure system of business, banks would 
compete with each other in respect of the degree of secu- 
rity they offered — would endeavour to outdo each other 
in the obtainment of a legitimate public confidence. Con- 
sider the position of a new joint-stock-bank with limited 
liability, and unchecked by legal regulations. It can do 
nothing until it has gained the general good opinion. In 
the way of this there stand great difficulties. Its consti- 
tution is untried, and is sure to be looked upon by the 
trading world with considerable distrust. The field is al- 



34:8 BTATE-TATMTKPJXGS WITH MOXEY AND BANKS. 

ready occupied by old banks with established connections. 
Out of a constituency satisfied with the present accom 
modation, it has to obtain supporters for a system that is 
apparently less safe than the old. How shall it do this ? 
Evidently it must find some unusual mode of assuring the 
community of its trustworthiness. And out of a nurnbej* 
of new banks so circumstanced, it is not too much to sup- 
pose that ultimately one would hit on some mode. It 
might be, for instance, that such a bank would give to 
all who held deposits over £1,000 the liberty of inspect- 
ing its books — of ascertaining from time to time its lia- 
bilities and its investments. Already this plan is fre- 
quently adopted by private traders, as a means of assuring 
those who lend money to them ; and this extension of it 
might naturally take place under the pressure of compe- 
tition. AYe have put the question to a gentleman who 
has had long and successful experience as a manager of a 
joint-stock-bank, and his reply is, that some such course 
would very probably be adopted : adding that, under this 
arrangement, a depositor would practically become a part- 
ner with limited liability. 

Were a system of this kind to establish itself, it would 
form a double check to unhealthy trading. ConseiousiK^ 
that its rashness would become known to its chief clients, 
would prevent the bank-management from being rash ; and 
consciousness that his credit would be damaged when his 
large debt to the bank was whispered, would prevent the 
speculator from contracting so large a debt. Both lender 
and borrower would be restrained from reckless enter- 
prise. Very little inspection would suffice to effect this 
end. One or two cautious depositors would be enough ; 
seeing that the mere expectation of immediate disclosure, 
in case of misconduct, would mostly keep in order all 
those concerned. 

Should it however be contended, as by some it may 



THE CHARGE OF EMPIRICISM. 349 

that this safeguard would be of no avail — should it be al- 
leged that, having in their own hands the means of safety, 
citizens would not use them, but would still put blind 
faith in directors, and give unlimited trust to respectable 
names ; then we reply that they would deserve whatever 
bad consequences fell on them. If they did not take ad- 
vantage of the proffered guarantee, the penalty be on 
their own heads. We have no patience with the mawkish 
philanthropy which would ward off the punishment of 
stupidity. The ultimate result of shielding men from the 
effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. 

A few words in conclusion respecting the attitude of 
our opponents. Leaving joint-stock-bank legislation, on 
which the eyes of the public are happily becoming opened, 
and returning to the Bank-Charter, with its theory of 
currency-regulation, we have to charge its supporters with 
gross, if not wilful, misrepresentation. Their established 
policy is to speak of all antagonism as identified with ad- 
hesion to the vulgarest fallacies. They daily present, as 
the only alternatives, their own dogma or some wild doc- 
trine too absurd to be argued. " Side with us or choose 
anarchy," is the substance of their homilies. 

To speak specifically : — They boldly assert, in the first 
place, that they are the upholders of " principle ; " and on 
all opposition they seek to fasten the title of " empiricism." 
Now, we are at a loss to see what there is " empirical " in 
the position, that a bank-note-circulation will regulate it- 
self in the same way that the circulation of other paper- 
currency does. It seems to us any thing but " empirical," 
to say that the natural check of prospective bankruptcy, 
which restrains the trader from issuing too many promises- 
to-pay at given dates, will similarly restrain the banker 
from issuing too many promises-to-pay on demand. We 
take him to be the opposite of an il empiric," who holds 



350 STATE- TAMFEBSBGB WITH MOXET AXD EAXK-. 

that people's characters and circumstances determine the 
quantity of credit-memoranda in circulation ; and that the 
monetary disorders which their imperfect characters and 
changing circumstances occasionally entail, can be exacer- 
bated, but cannot be prevented by State-nostrums. 

On the other hand, we do not see in virtue of what 
"principle" it is, that the contract expressed on the face 
of a bank-note must be dealt with differently from any 
other contract. We cannot understand the "principle" 
which requires the State to control the business of bank- 
ers, so that they may not make engagements they cannot 
fulfil, but which does not require the State to do the like 
with other traders. To us it is a very incomprehensible 
"principle" which permits the Bank of England to issue 
£14,000,000 on the credit of the State, but which is broken 
if the State-credit is mortgaged beyond thi — a ••princi- 
ple" which implies that £14,000,000 of notes may 1 
sued without gold to meet them, but insists on rigorous 
precautions for the convertibility of every pound : 
We are curious to learn how it was inferred from this 
"principle" that the average note-circulation of each pro- 
vincial bank, during certain t i in 1844, 
exactly the note-circulation which its capital justified, g 
far from discerning a "principle," it Beems to us that both 
the idea and its appli pirical as they can 
well be. 

Still more astounding, however, is the assumption of 
these "currency-theorists," that their doctrines are tl 
of Free-trade. In the Legislature, Lord Overstone, and 
in the press, the Saturday JRevieWy have. am<-:.. 
asserted this. To call that a Free-trade measure, which 
has the avowed object of restricting certain voluntary 
acts oi exchange, appears so manifest a contradiction in 
terms, that it is scarcely credible it should be made. The 
whole system of currency-legislation is restrietionist from 



351 

beginn>^ig to end : equally in spirit and detail. Is that a 
Free-trade regulation which has all along forbidden banks 
of issue within sixty-five miles of London ? Is that Free- 
trade which enacts that none but such as have now the 
State-warrant, shall henceforth give promises-to-pay on 
demand ? Is that Free-trade which at a certain point 
steps in between the banker and his customer, and puts a 
veto on any further exchange of credit-documents ? We 
wonder what would be said by two merchants, the one 
about to draw a bill on the other in return for goods sold, 
who should be stopped by a State-officer with the remark 
that, having examined the buyer's ledger, he was of opin- 
ion that ready as the seller might be to take the bill, it 
would be unsafe for him to do so ; and that the law, in 
pursuance of the principles of Free-trade, negatived the 
transaction ! Yet for the promise-to-pay in six months, it 
needs but to substitute a promise-to-pay on demand, and 
the case becomes substantially that of banker and cus- 
tomer. 

It is true that the " currency-theorists " have a colour- 
able excuse in the fact, that among their opponents are 
the advocates of various visionary schemes, and pro- 
pounders of regulations quite as protectionist in spirit as 
their own. It is true that there are some who contend for 
inconvertible " labour-notes ; " and others who argue that 
in times of commercial pressure, banks should not raise 
their rates of discount. But is this any justification for 
recklessly stigmatizing all antagonism as coming from 
these classes, in the face of the fact that the Bank-Act has 
been protested against by the highest authorities in politi- 
cal economy ? Do not the defenders of the " currency- 
principle" know, that among their opponents are Mr. 
Thornton, long known as an able writer on currency-ques- 
tions ; Mr. Tooke and Mr. Newmarch, famed for their la- 
borious and exhaustive researches respecting currency and 



352 STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH MOXEY ANT) BA^KS. 

prices ; Mr. Fullarton, whose " Regulation of Currencies " 
is a standard work ; Mr. Macleod, whose just-issued book 
displays the endless injustices and stupidities of our mon- 
etary history; Mr. James Wilson, M. P., who, in detailed 
knowledge of commerce, currency, and banking, is proba- 
bly unrivalled ; and Mr. John Stuart Mill, who both as 
logician and economist, stands in the first rank? Do 
they not know that the alleged distinction between bank- 
notes and other credit-documents, which forms the pro- 
fessed basis of the Bank-Act (and for which Sir R. Peel 
could quote only the one poor authority of Lord Liver- 
pool) is denied, not only by the gentlemen above named, 
but also by Mr. Huskisson, Professor Storch, Dr. Travers 
Twiss, and the distinguished French Professors, M. Joseph 
Gamier, and M. Michel Chevalier ? * Do they not know, 
in short, that both the profoundest thinkers and the most 
patient inquirers are against them ? If they do not know 
this, it is time they studied the subject on which they 
write with such an air of authority. If they do know it. 
a little more respect for their opponents would not be 
unbecoming. 

* See Mr. Tookc's " Bank Charter Act of iS-M," etc. 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM: THE DAN 
GERS, AND THE SAFEGUARDS. 



THIRTY years ago, the dread of impending evils agi- 
tated not a few breasts throughout England. In- 
stinctive fear of change, justified as it seemed by out- 
bursts of popular violence, conjured up visions of the an- 
archy which would follow the passing of a Reform Bill. 
In scattered farmhouses there was chronic terror, lest those 
newly endowed with political power should in some way 
filch all the profits obtained by rearing cattle and grow- 
ing corn. The occupants of halls and manors spoke of 
ten-pound householders almost as though they formed an 
army of spoilers, threatening to overrun and devastate 
the property of landholders. Among townspeople there 
Trere some who interpreted the abolition of old corrup- 
tions into the establishment of mob-government, which 
they held to be equivalent with spoliation. And even in 
Parliament, such alarms found occasional utterance : as, 
for instance, through the mouth of Sir Robert Inglis, who 
ainted that the national debt would not improbably be 
repudiated if the proposed measure became law. 

There may perhaps be a few who regard the now 
pending change in the representation with similar dread— 



B54 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM: THE DANGERS, ETC. 

who think that artisans and others of their grade are pre* 
pared, when the power is given to them, to lay hands on 
property. We presume, however, that such irrational 
alarmists form but a small percentage of the nation. Xot 
only throughout the Liberal party, but among the Con- 
servatives, there exists a much fairer estimate of the pop- 
ular character than is implied by anticipations of so 
gloomy a kind. Many of the upper and middle classes 
are conscious of the fact, that if critically compared, the 
average conduct of the wealthy Avould not be found to 
differ very widely in rectitude from that of the poor. 
Making due allowance for differences in the kinds and 
degrees of temptation to which they are exposed, the 
respective grades of society are tolerably uniform in 
their morals. That disregard of the rights of property 
which, among the people at large, shows itself in the 
direct form of petty thefts, shows itself among their richer 
neighbours in various indirect forms, which are scarcely 
less flagitious and often much more detrimental to fellow 
citizens. Traders, wholesale and retail, commit count- 
less dishonesties, ranging from adulteration and short 
measure, up to fraudulent bankruptcy — dishonesties of 
which we sketched out some of the ramifications in a 
late article on " The Morals of Trade." The trickeries of 
the turf; the bribery of electors; the non-payment of 
tradesmen's bills; the jobbing in railway-shares; the ob- 
tainment of exorbitant prices for land from railway-com- 
panies ; the corruption that attends the getting of private 
bills through Parliament — these and other such illustra- 
tions, show that the unconscientiousness of the upper 
class, manifested though it is in different forms, is not less 
than that of the lower class: bears as great a ratio to the 
size of the class, and, if traced to its ultimate results, pro- 
duces evils as great, if not greater. 

And if the facts prove that in uprightness of inten 



THE DANGER TO BE APPREHENDED. 355 

tion, there is little to choose between one class of the 
community and another, an extension of the franchise 
cannot rationally be opposed on the ground that property 
would be directly endangered. There is no more reason 
to suppose that the mass of artisans and labourers would 
use political power with conscious injustice to their richer 
neighbours, than there is reason to suppose that their 
richer neighbours now consciously commit legal injustices 
against artisans and labourers. 

What, then, is the danger to be apprehended? If 
land, and houses, and railways, and funds, and property 
of all other kinds, would be held with no less security 
than now, why need there be any fears that the franchise 
would be misused ? What are the misuses of it which 
are rationally to be anticipated ? 

The ways in which those to be endowed with political 
power are likely to abuse it, may be inferred from the 
ways in which political power has been abused by those 
who have possessed it. 

What general trait has characterized the rule of the 
classes hitherto dominant ? These classes have not habit- 
ually sought their own direct advantage at the expense of 
other classes; but their measures have nevertheless fre- 
quently been such as were indirectly advantageous to 
themselves. Voluntary self-sacrifice has been the excep- 
tion. The rule has been, so to legislate as to preserve pri- 
vate interests from injury, whether public interests were 
injured or not. Though, in equity, a landlord has no 
greater claim on a defaulting tenant than any other cred- 
itor, yet landlords, having formed the majority of the le- 
gislature, the law has given them power to recover rent in 
anticipation of other creditors. Though the duties paya. 
ble to government on the transfer of property to heirs and 
.egatees, might justly have been made to fall more hea- 



356 PARLIAMENTARY EEFOEM : THE DAXGEE3, ETC. 

vily ou the wealthy than on the comparatively poor, and 
on real property rather than on personal property, yet the 
reverse arrangement was enacted and long maintained, 
and is even still partially in force. Rights of presentation 
to places in the Church, obtained however completely in 
violation of the spirit of the law, are yet tenaciously de- 
fended, with little or no regard to the welfare of those for 
whom the Church ostensibly exists. TTere it not ac- 
counted for by the bias of personal interests, it would be 
impossible to explain the fact, that on the question of pro- 
tection to agriculture, the landed classes and their depend- 
ents were ranged against the other classes : the same evi- 
dence being open to both. And if there needs a still 
stronger illustration, we have it in the opposition made to 
the repeal of the Corn-Laws by the established clergy. 
Though by their office, preachers of justice and mercy — 
though constantly occupied in condemning selfishness and 
holding up a supreme example of self-sacrifice ; y< 
swayed were they by those temporal interests which they 
thought endangered, that they offered to this proposed 
change an almost uniform resistance. Out of some ten 
thousand ex officio friends of the poor and needy, there 
was but one (the Rev. Thomas Spencer) who took an ac- 
tive part in abolishing this tax imposed on the people's 
bread for the maintenance of landlords' rents. 

Such are a few of the ways in which, in modern ti: 
those who have the power seek their own benefit at the 
expense of the rest. It is in analogous ways that we must 
expect any section of the community which may be made 
predominant by a political change, to sacrifice the welfare 
of other sections to its own. While we do rot see n 
to think that the lower classes are intrinsically less con- 
scientious than the upper classes, we do not see reason to 
think that they are more conscientious. Holding, as we 
do, that in each society, and in each age, the morality is 



BIAS OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 357 

on the average, the same throughout all ranks ; it seems 
to us clear that if the rich, when they have the opportu- 
nity, make laws which unduly favour themselves, it must 
be concluded that the poor, if their power was in excess, 
would do the like in similar ways and to a similar extent. 
Without believing that they would knowingly enact in- 
justice, we believe that they would be unconsciously 
biased by personal considerations, and that our legislation 
would err as much in a new direction as it has hitherto 
done in the old. 

This abstract conclusion we shall find confirmed on 
contemplating the feelings and opinions current among 
artisans and labourers. What the working classes now 
wish done, indicates what they would be likely to do, if a 
reform in the representation made them preponderate. 
Judging from their prevailing sentiments, they would 
doubtless do, or aid in doing, many things which it is de- 
sirable to have done. Such a question as that of Church- 
rates would have been settled long ago had the franchise 
been wider. Any great increase of popular influence, 
would go far to rectify the present inequitable relation of 
the established religious sect to the rest of the community. 
And various other remnants of class-legislation would 
soon be swept away. But besides ideas likely to eventu- 
ate in changes which we should regard as beneficial, the 
working classes entertain ideas that could not be realized 
without gross injustice to other classes and ultimate injury 
to themselves. There is among them a prevailing enmity 
towards capitalists. The fallacy that machinery acts to 
their damage, is still widely spread, both among rural la- 
bourers and the inhabitants of towns. And they show a 
wish, not only to dictate how long per daymen shall 
vrork, but to regulate all the relations between employers 
and employed. Let us briefly consider the evidence of 
this. 



358 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM I THE DANGERS, ETC. 

"When, adding another to the countless errors which it 
has taught the people, the Legislature, by passing the 
Ten-Hours-Bill, asserted that it was the duty of the State 
to limit the duration of labour, there naturally arose 
among the working classes, the desire for further ameliora- 
tions to be secured in the same way. First came the for- 
midable strike of the Amalgamated Engineers. The rules 
of this body aim to restrict the supply of labour in va- 
rious ways. Xo member is allowed to work more than a 
fixed number of hours per week ; nor for less than a fixed 
rate of wages. Ko man is admitted into the trade who 
has not " earned a right by probationary servitude." 
There is a strict registration, which is secured by fines on 
any one who neglects to notify his marriage, removal, or 
change of service. The council decides, without appeal, 
on all the affairs, individual and general, of the body. 
How tyrannical are the regulations may be judged from 
the fact, that members are punished for divulging any 
thing concerning the society's business ; for censuring one 
another; for vindicating the conduct of those fined, etc. 
And their own unity of action being secured by these co- 
ercive measures, the Amalgamated Engineers made a pro- 
longed effort to impose on their employers, sundry restric- 
tions Avhich they supposed would be beneficial to them- 
selves. More recently, we have seen similar objects 
worked for by similar means during the strike of the Op- 
erative Builders. In one of their early manifestoes, this 
body of men contended that they had " an equal right to 
share with other workers, that large amount of public 
sympathy which is now being so widely extended in the 
direction of shortening the hours of labour : v thus show- 
ing at once their delusion and its source. Believing, as 
they had been taught by an Act of Parliament to believe, 
that the relation between the quantity of labour given 
and the wages received, is not a natural but an artificial 



CLAIMS OF OPEEATIYE BUILDEES. 359 

one ; they demanded that while the wages remained the 
same, the hours should be reduced from ten to nine. 
They recommended their employers so to make their fu- 
ture contracts, as to allow for this diminished day's work : 
saying they were " so sanguine as to consider the con- 
summation of their desire inevitable : " a polite way of 
hinting that their employers must succumb to the irresisti- 
ble power of their organization. Referring to the threat 
of the master-builders to close their works, they warned 
them against "the responsibility of causing the public 
disaster" thus indicated. And when the breach finally 
took place, the Unionists set in action the approved appli- 
ances for bringing masters to terms, and would have suc- 
ceeded had it not been that their antagonists, believing 
that concessions would be ruinous, made a united resist- 
ance. During several previous years, master-builders had 
been yielding to various extravagant demands, of which 
those recently made were a further development. Had 
they assented to the diminished day's work, and abolished 
systematic overtime, as they were required to do, there is 
no reason to suppose the dictation would have ended here. 
Success would have presently led to still more exacting 
requirements, and future years would have witnessed fur- 
ther extensions of this mischievous meddling between cap- 
ital and labour. 

Perhaps the completest illustration of the industrial 
regulations that find favour with artisans, is supplied by 
the Printers' Union. With the exception of those engaged 
in The Times office, and in one other large establishment, 
the proprietors of which successfully resisted the combi- 
nation, the compositors, pressmen, etc., throughout the 
kingdom, form a society which controls all the relations 
between employers and employed. There is a fixed price 
for setting up the type— so much per thousand letters : no 
master can give less no compositor being allowed by the 
16 



360 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM I THE DANGERS, ETC. 



Union to work for less. There are established rates for 
press-work, and established numbers less than which you 
cannot have printed, without paying for work that is not 
done. The scale rises by what are called " tokens " of 
250 ; and if but 50 copies are required, the charge is the 
same as for printing 250 ; or if 300 are wanted, payment 
must be made for 500. Besides regulating prices and 
modes of charcrino- to their own advantage, in these and 
other ways, the members of the Union restrict competition 
by limiting the number of apprentices brought into the 
business. So well organized is this combination that the 
masters are obliged to succumb. An infraction of the 
rules in any printing-office, leads to a strike of the men ; 
and this being supported by the Union at large, the em- 
ployer has to yield. 

That in other trades, artisans would, if they could. 
tablish restrictive systems equally complete with this, we 
take to be sufficiently proved by their often repeated at- 
tempts. The Tin-plate- Workers' strike, the Coventry- 
Weavers' strike, the Engineers' strike, the Shoemakers' 
strike, the Builders' strike, all show a most decided lean- 
ing towards a despotic regulation of trade-pri© 
and arrangements — towards an abolition of free trade be- 
tween employers and employed. Should the men eng 
in our various industries succeed in their aims, each indus- 
try would be so shackled as seriously to raise the cost of 
production. The chief penalty would thus fall on the 
working classes themselves. Each producer, while pro- 
tected in the exercise of his own occupation, would on 
every commodity he bought have to pay an extra price, 
consequent on the protection of other producers. In short. 
there would be established, under a new form, the old mis- 
chievous system ol mutual taxation. And a final re>ult 
would be such a diminished ability to compete with other 
nations as to destroy our foreign trade. 



DESPOTISM OF TKADES-UNIONS. 361 

Against results like these it behoves us carefully to 
guard. It becomes a grave question how far we may 
safely give political power to those who entertain views 
so erroneous respecting fundamental social relations, and 
who so pertinaciously struggle to enforce these erroneous 
views. Men who render up their private liberties to the 
despotic rulers of trades-unions, seem scarcely independ- 
ent enough rightly to exercise political liberties. Those 
who so ill understand the nature of freedom, as to think 
that any man or body of men has a right to prevent em- 
ployer and employed from making any contract they 
please, would almost appear to be incapacitated for the 
guardianship of their own freedom and that of their fel- 
low-citizens. When their notions of rectitude are so con- 
fused, that they think it a duty to obey the arbitrary com- 
mands of their union-authorities, and to abandon the right 
of individually disposing of their labour on their own 
terms — when, in conformity with this inverted sense of 
duty, they even risk the starvation of their families — 
when they call that an "odious document" which simply 
demands that master and man shall be free to make their 
own bargains — when their sense of justice is so obtuse 
that they are ready to bully, to deprive of Avork, to starve, 
and even to kill, members of their own class who rebel 
against dictation, and assert their rights to sell their la- 
bour at such rates and to such persons as they think lit — 
when in short they prove themselves ready to become 
alike slaves and tyrants, we may well pause before giving 
them the franchise. 

The objects which artisans have long sought to achieve 
by their private organizations, they would, had they ade- 
quate political power, seek to achieve by public enact- 
ments. If, on points like those instanced, their convictions 
are so strong and their determination so great, that they 
will time after time submit to extreme privations in the 



p.rtc: 



62 TAELIAMENTAET EEFOEH '. THE DANGEES, ETC. 

effort to carry them, it is a reasonable expectation that 
these convictions, pushed with this determination, would 
Boon be expressed in law, if those who held them had a 
dominant power. With working men, questions concern 
ing the regulation of labour are of the highest interest. 
Candidates for Parliament would be more likely to obtain 
their suffrages by pandering to their prejudices on such 
questions, than in any other way. Should it be said that 
no evil need be feared unless the artisan-class numerically 
preponderated in the constituencies, it may be rejoined 
that not unfrequently, where two chief political parties 
are nearly balanced, some other party, though much 
smaller, determines the election. "When we bear in mind 
that the trades-unions throughout the kingdom number 
600,000 members, and command a fund of £300,000 — 
when we remember that these trades-unions are in the 
habit of aiding each other, and have even been incorpo- 
rated into one national association — when we also remem 
ber that their organization is very complete, and their 
power over their members mercilessly exercised, it seems 
likely that at a general election their combined action 
would decide the result in many towns: even though the 
artisans in each case formed but a moderate portion of the 
constituency. How influential small but combined bodies 
are, the Irish Members of our House of Commons prove 
to us, and still more clearly the Irish emigrants in Amer 
ica, Certainly these trade-combinations are not less per- 
fectly organized; nor are the motives of their members 
less strong. Judge then how efficient their political action 
would be. 

It is true that in county-constituencies and rural towns, 
the artisan class have no power; and that in the antago- 
nism of agriculturists there would be a restraint on their 
projects. But, on the other hand, the artisans would, on 
these questions, have the sympathy of many not be 1 . 



DIFFICULTY OF EXTENDING FRANCHISE. 363 

ing to their own body. Numerous small shopkeepers, and 
others who are in point of means about on their level, 
would go with them in their efforts to regulate the rela- 
tions of capital and labour. Among the middle classes, 
too, there are not a few kindly-disposed men who are so 
ignorant of political economy as to think the artisans jus- 
tified in their aims. Even among the landed class they 
might find supporters. We have but to recollect the an- 
tipathy shown by landowners in Parliament to the manu- 
facturing interest, during the ten-hours' agitation, to see 
that it is quite possible for country squires to join the 
working men in imposing restrictions unfavourable to em- 
ployers. True, the angry feeling which then prompted 
them has in some measure died away. It is to be hoped, 
too, that they have gained wisdom. But still, remember- 
ing the past, we must take this contingency into account. 
Here, then, is one of the dangers to which an exten- 
sion of the franchise opens the door. While the fear that 
the rights of property may be directly interfered with, 
is absurd, it is a very rational fear that the rights of prop- 
erty may be indirectly interfered with — that by cramping 
laws, the capitalist may be prevented from using his 
money as he finds best, and the workman from selling 
his labour to the greatest advantage. We are not pre- 
pared to say what widening of the representation would 
bring about such results. We profess neither to estimate 
what amount of artisan-power a £6 or a £5 borough-fran- 
chise would give ; nor to determine whether the opposing 
powers would suffice to keep it in check. Our purpose 
here is simply to indicate this establishment of injurious 
industrial regulations, as one of the dangers to be kept in 
view. 

Turn we now to another danger, distinct from the fore- 
going, though near akin to it. Next after the evils of that 



364 PAELIAMENTAEY BEFOEM I THE DAXGEES, ETC. 

over-legislation which restricts the exchange of capita.' 
and labour, come the evils of that over legislation which 
provides for the community, by State-agency, benefits 
which capital and labour should be left spontaneously to 
provide. And it naturally though unfortunately happeDS, 
that those who lean to the one kind of over-legislation, 
lean also to the other kind. Men leading laborious lives, 
relieved by little in the shape of enjoyment, give willing 
ears to the doctrine that the State should provide them 
with various positive advantages and gratifications. The 
much-enduring poor cannot be expected to deal very criti- 
cally with those who promise them gratis pleasures. Ac 
a drowning man catches at a straw, so will one whose ex- 
istence is burdensome catch at any thing, no matter how 
unsubstantial, which holds out the slightest hope of a lit- 
tle happiness. We must not, therefore, blame the work 
ing-classcs for being ready converts to socialistic schemes, 
or to a belief in " the sovereign power of political ma- 
chinery." 

Not that the working-classes alone fall into these delu- 
sions. Unfortunately they are countenanced, and have 
been in part misled, by those above them. In Parliament 
and out of Parliament, well-meaning men among the up- 
per and middle ranks, have been active apostles of these 
false doctrines. There has ever been, and still contin- 
ues to be, very much law-making based on the assump- 
tion, that it is the duty of the State, not simply to insure 
each citizen fair play in the battle of life, but to help him 
in fighting the battle of life; having previously taken 
money from his or some one else's pocket to pay the cost 
of doing this. And Ave cannot glance over the papers 
without seeing how active are the agitations carried on 
out of doors in furtherance of this policy, and how they 
threaten to become daily more active. The doings of the 
Chadwick-school furnish one set of illustrations. From 



UTOPIANISMS OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 365 

those of the Shaftesbury-school other illustrations may bo 
gathered. And in the transactions of the body, absurdly 
self-entitled " The National Association for the Promotion 
of Social Science," we find still more numerous develop- 
ments of this mischievous error. 

When we say that the working-classes, and more espe- 
cially the artisan-classes, have strong leanings towards 
these Utopianisms, which they have unhappily been en- 
couraged to entertain by many who should have known 
better, we do not speak at random. We are not drawing 
an d priori inference as to the doctrines likely to find fa- 
vour with men in their position. Nor are we guided 
merely by evidence to be gathered from newspapers. But 
we have a basis of definite fact in the proceedings of re- 
formed municipal governments. These bodies have from 
year to year extended their functions ; and so heavy has 
in some cases become the consequent local taxation, as to 
have caused a reaction against the political party that wa? 
responsible. Town-councils almost exclusively Whig 
have of late been made comparatively Conservative, bj 
the efforts of those richer classes who suffer most froir 
municipal extravagance. With whom, then, has this ex 
travagance been popular ? With the poorer members oi 
the constituencies. Candidates for town-councillorshipf 
have found no better means of insuring the suffrages of 
the mass, than the advocacy of this or the other local un 
dertaking. To build baths and wash-houses at the ex. 
pense of the town, has proved a popular proposal. The 
support of public gardens, out of funds raised by local 
rates, has been applauded by the majority. So, too, with 
the establishment of free libraries, which has, of course, 
met with encouragement from workingmen, and from 
those who wish to find favour with them. Should some 
one, taking a hint from the cheap concerts now common 
in our manufacturing towns, propose to supply music al 



366 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM: THE DANGERS, ETC, 



the public cost, we doubt not he would be hailed as a 
friend of the people. And similarly with countless social- 
istic schemes, of which, when once commenced, there is 
no end. 

Such being the demonstrated tendencies of municipal 
governments, with their extended bases of representation, 
is it not a fair inference that a Central Government, hav- 
ing a base of representation much wider than the present, 
would manifest like tendencies ? We shall see the more 
reason for fearing this, when we remember that those who 
approve of multiplied State-agencies, would generally ally 
themselves with those who seek for the legislative regula- 
tion of labour. The doctrines are near akin ; and they 
are, to a considerable extent, held by the same persons. 
If united the two bodies would have a formidable power; 
and, appealed to as they would often be, by candidates 
expressing sympathy on both these points, they mi 
even though a minority, get unduly represented in the 
Legislature. Such, at least, seems to us a further danger. 
Led by philanthropists having sympathies stronger than 
their intellects, the working-classes are very likely to em- 
ploy their influence in increasing o ver-legislation : not only 
by agitating for industrial regulations, but in various other 
ways. What extension of franchise would make this dan- 
ger a serious one, we do not pretend to say. Ilere, as 
before, we would simply indicate a probable source of 
mischief. 

And now what are the safeguards? Xot such as we 
believe will be adopted. To meet evils like those which 
threaten to follow the impending political change, the 
common plan is to devise special checks — minor limita- 
tions and qualifications. Xot to dry up the evil at its 
source, but to dam it out, is, in analogous eases, the usual 
aim. We have no faith in such methods. The onlv em 



THE TEUE CORRECTIVE. 3G7 

cient safeguard lies in a change of convictions and mo- 
tives. And to work a change of this kind, there is no 
certain way but that of letting men directly feel the pen- 
alties which mistaken legislation brings on them. " How 
is this to be done ? " the reader will doubtless ask. Sim- 
ply by letting causes and effects stand in their natural 
relations. Simply by taking away those vicious arrange- 
ments which now mostly prevent men from seeing the 
reactions that follow legislative actions. 

At present, the extension of public administrations is 
popular, mainly because there has not been established in 
the minds of the people, any distinct connection between 
the benefits to be gained and the expenses to be paid. Of 
the conveniences or gratifications secured to them by 
some new body of officials with a fund at its disposal, 
they have immediate experience ; but of the way in which 
the costs fall on the nation, and ultimately on themselves, 
they have no immediate experience. Our fiscal arrange- 
ments dissociate the ideas of increased public expenditure 
and increased burdens on all who labour, and thus encour- 
age the superstition that law can give gratis benefits. 
This is clearly the chief cause of that municipal extrava- 
gance to which we have above adverted. The working 
men of our towns possess public power, while many of 
them do not directly bear public burdens. On small 
houses the taxes for borough-purposes are usually paid by 
the landlords ; and of late years, for the sake of conven- . 
ience and economy, there has grown up a system of com- 
pounding with landlords of small houses even for the 
poor's-rates chargeable to their tenants. 

Under this arrangement, at first voluntary but now 
compulsory, a certain discount off the total rates due from 
a number of houses, is allowed to the owner, in considera- 
tion of his paying the rates, and thus saving the authori- 
ties trouble and loss in collection. And he is supposed tc 



368 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM I THE DANGERS, ETC. 

raise his rents by the full amount of the rates charged 
Thus, most municipal electors, not paying local taxes in a 
separate form, are not constantly reminded of the connec- 
tion between public expenditure and personal costs ; and 
hence it happens that any outlay made for local purposes, 
no matter how extravagant and unreasonable, which 
brings to them some kind of advantage, is regarded as 
pure gain. If the corporation resolves, quite unnecessa- 
rily, to rebuild a town-hall, the resolution is of course ap- 
proved by the majority. '*It is good for trade, and it 
costs us nothing," is the argument which passes vaguely 
through their minds. If some one proposes to buy an 
adjoining estate, and turn it into a public park, the work- 
ing classes naturally give their support to the proposal ; 
for ornamented grounds cannot but be an advantage, and 
though the rates may be increased, that will be no aifair 
of theirs. Thus necessarily arises a tendency to multiply 
public agencies and increase public outlay. It becomes 
an established policy with popularity-hunters, to advocate 
new works to be executed by the town. Those who dis- 
approve this course are in fear that their seats may be 
jeopardized at the next election, should they make a vig- 
orous opposition. And thus do these local administrai 
inevitably Iran towards abnormal developments. 

No one can, we think, doubt, that were the rates lev- 
ied directly on all electors, a check would be given to this 
municipal communism. If each small occupier found that 
every new work undertaken by the authorities, cost him 
so many pence extra in the pound, he would begin to con 
sider with himself, whether the advantage gained was 
equivalent to the price paid : and would often reach ;; 
ative conclusion. It would become a question with him 
whether, instead oi^ letting the local government provide 
him with certain remote advantages in return for certain 
moneys, he might not himself purchase with such monevs 






BENEFITS OF DIRECT TAXATION. 369 

immediate advantages of greater worth ; and, generally, 
he would decide that he could do this. Without saying 
to what extent such a restraint would act, we may safely 
say that it would be beneficial. Every one must admit, 
that each inhabitant of a town ought constantly to be re- 
minded of the relation between the work performed for 
him by the corporation and the sum he pays for it. ISTo 
one can, we think, deny that the habitual experience of 
this relation would tend to keep the action of local gov 
ernments within proper bounds. 

Similarly with the Central Government. Here the 
effects* wrought by public agencies, are still m jre disso- 
ciated from the costs they entail on each citizen. The 
bulk of the taxes being raised in so unobtrusive a way, 
and affecting the masses in modes so difficult to trace, it is 
scarcely possible for the masses to realize the fact, that 
the sums paid by Government for supporting schools, for 
facilitating emigration, for inspecting mines, factories, 
railways, ships, etc., have been in great part taken from 
their own pockets. The more intelligent of them under- 
stand this as an abstract truth; but it is not a truth 
present to their minds in such a definite shape as to influ- 
ence their actions. Quite otherwise, however, would it be 
if taxation were direct ; and the expense of every new 
State-agency were felt by each citizen as an additional 
demand made on him by the tax-gatherer. Then would 
there be a clear, constantly-recurring experience of the 
truth, that for every thing which the State gives with one 
hand it takes away something- with the other ; and then 
would it be less easy to propagate absurd delusions about 
the powers and duties of Governments. 

ISTo one can question this conclusion who calls to mind 
the reason currently given for maintaining indirect taxa- 
tion ; namely, that the required revenue could not other- 
wise be raised. Statesmen see that if instead of taking 



370 PARLIAMENTARY EEEOEM 

from the citizen here a little and there a little, in ways 
that he does not know or constantly forgets, the whole 
amount were demanded in a lump sum, it would scarcely 
be possible to get it paid. Grumbling and resistance 
would rise probably to disaffection. Coercion would in 
hosts of cases be needed to obtain this large total tax ; 
which indeed, even with this aid, could not be obtained 
from the majority of the people, whose improvident hab- 
its prevent the accumulation of considerable sums. And 
so the revenue would fall immensely short of that expen- 
diture which is supposed necessary. This 1 i uted 
to, it must perforce be admitted that under a system of 
direct taxation, further extension of public administra- 
tions, entailing further costs, would meet with general 
opposition. Instead of multiplying the functions of the 
State, the tendency would obviously be to reduce their 
number. 

Here, then, is one of the safeguards. The incidence 
of taxation must be made more direct in proportion as the 
franchise is extended. Our changes ought not to be in 
the direction of the Compound-lIouseholders-Act of 1851, 
wh'u-h makes it no longer needful for a Parliamentary elec- 
tor to have paid poorVrates before giving a vote ; but 
they ought to be in exactly the opposite direction. The 
exercise of power over the national revenue, should be 
indissolubly associated with the co?iscious payment of con- 
tributions to that revenue. Direct taxation instead of 
being limited, as many wish, must be extended to lower 
and wider classes, as fast as these classes are endowed with 
political power. 

Probably this proposal will be regarded with small 
favour by statesmen. It is not in the nature of things for 
men to approve a system which tends to restrict their 
powers. We know, too, that any great ext en-ion of di- 
rect taxation will be held at present impossible : and we 



TAXATION SHOULD ACCOMPANY ENFRANCHISEMENT. 371 

are not prepared to assert the contrary. This, however 
is no reason against reducing the indirect taxation and 
augmenting the direct taxation as far as circumstances al- 
low. And if when the last had been increased and the 
first decreased to the greatest extent now practicable, it 
were made an established principle that any additional 
revenue must be raised by direct taxes, there would be an 
efficient check to one of the evils likely to follow from 
further political enfranchisement. 

The other evil which we have pointed out as rationally 
to be feared, cannot be thus met, however. Though an 
ever-recurring experience of the relation between State- 
action and its cost, would hinder the growth of those 
State-agencies which undertake to supply citizens with 
positive conveniences and gratifications, it would be no 
restraint on that negative and inexpensive over-legislation 
which trespasses on individual freedom — it would not pre- 
vent mischievous meddling with the relations between la- 
bour and capital. Against this danger the only safeguards 
appear to be, the spread of sounder views among the 
working classes, and the moral advance which such sounder 
views imply. 

" That is to say, the people must be educated," re- 
sponds the reader. Yes, education is the thing wanted ; 
but not the education for which most men agitate. Ordi- 
nary school-training is not a preparation for the right ex- 
ercise of political power. Conclusive proof of this is 
given by the fact that the artisans, from whose mistaken 
ideas the most danger is to be feared, are the best informed 
of the working classes. Far from promising to be a safe- 
guard, the spread of such education as is commonly given, 
appears more likely to increase the danger. Raising the 
working classes in general to the artisan-level of culture, 
rather threatens to augment their power of working polit- 



372 PAELIAMEOTABY EEFOEM : THE DAXGEES, ETC. 

ical evil. The current faith in Reading, Writing, and 
Arithmetic, as fitting men for citizenship, seems to us 
quite unwarranted : as are, indeed, most other anticipa- 
tions of the benefits to be derived from learning lessons. 

There is no connection between the ability to parse a 
sentence, and a clear understanding of the causes that de- 
termine the rate of wages. The multiplication-table af- 
fords no aid in seeing through the fallacy that the destruc- 
tion of property is good for trade. Long practice may 
have produced extremely good penmanship without hav- 
ing given the least power to understand the paradox, that 
machinery eventually increases the number of persons 
employed in the trades into which it is introduced. Nor 
is it proved that smatterings of mensuration, astronomy, 
or geography, fit men for estimating the characters and 
motives of Parliamentary candidates. Indeed we have 
only thus to bring together the antecedents and the anti- 
cipated consequents, to see how untenable is the belief in 
a relation between them. When we wish a girl to become 
a good musician, we seat her before the piano : we do not 
put drawing implements into her hands, and expect music 
to come along with skill in the use of pencils and colour- 
brushes. Sending a boy to pore over law-books, would 
be thought an extremely irrational way of preparing him 
for civil engineering. And if in these and all other c 
we do not expect fitness for any function except through 
instruction and exercise in that function ; why do we ex- 
pect fitness for citizenship to be produced by a discipline 
which has no relation to the duties of the citizen ? 

Probably it will be replied that by making the work- 
ing man a good reader, we give him access to sources of 
nformation from which he may learn how to use his elec- 
toral power ; and that other studies sharpen his faculties 
ind make him a better judge of political questions. This 
is true ; and the eventual tendency is unquestionably good 



EDUCATION OF POLITICIANS. 3^3 

But what if for a long time to come he reads only to ob 
tain confirmation of his errors ? What if there exists 
a literature appealing to his prejudices, and supplying 
him with fallacious arguments for the mistaken beliefs 
which he naturally takes up ? What if he rejects all 
teaching that aims to disabuse him of cherished delusions ? 
Must we not say that the culture which thus merely helps 
the workman to establish himself in error, rather unfits 
than fits him for citizenship ? And do not the trades'- 
unions furnish us with evidence of this ? 

How little that which people commonly call education 
prepares them for the use of political power, may be 
judged from the incompetency of those who have re- 
ceived the highest education the country aifords. Glance 
bacjc at the blunders of our legislation, and then remem- 
ber that the men who committed them had mostly taken 
University-degrees, and you must admit that the pro- 
foundest ignorance of Social Science may accompany inti- 
mate acquaintance with all that our cultivated classes re- 
gard as valuable knowledge. Do but take a young mem- 
ber of Parliament, fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, and 
ask him what he thinks Law should do, and why? or 
what it should not do, and why ? and it will become man- 
ifest that neither his familiarity with Aristotle nor his 
readings in Thucydides, have prepared him to answer the 
very first question a legislator ought to solve. A single 
illustration will suffice to show how different an education 
from that usually given, is required by legislators, and 
consequently by those who elect them : we mean the illus- 
tration which the Free-trade agitation supplies. By kings, 
peers, and members of Parliament, mostly brought up at 
universities, trade had been hampered by protections, pro- 
hibitions, and bounties. For centuries had been main- 
tained these legislative appliances which a very moderate 
insight shows to be detrimental. Yet, of all the highly- 



374 



educated throughout the nation during these centuries, 
scarcely a man saw how mischievous such appliancea 
were. Xot from one who devoted himself to the most 
approved studies, came the work which set politicians 
right on these points ; but from one who left college with- 
out a degree, and prosecuted inquiries which the estab- 
lished education ignored. Adam Smith examined for 
himself the industrial phenomena of societies ; contem- 
plated the productive and distributive activities going on 
around him ; traced out their complicated mutual depend- 
ences ; and thus reached general principles for political 
guidance. In recent days, those who have most clearly 
understood the truths he enunciated, and by persevering 
exposition have converted the nation to their views, have 
not been graduates of universities. While, contrail 
those who have passed through the prescrih hun, 

have commonly been the most bitter and obstinate oppo- 
nents of the changes dictated by politico-economical sci- 
ence. In tliis all-important direction, right 1 
was urged by men deficient in the so-called best educa- 
tion; and was resisted by the great majority of men who 
had received this so-called best educati 

The truth for which we contend, and which is so 
strangely overlooked, is, indeed, almost a truism. Does 
not our whole theory of training imply that the right 
preparation for political power i- political cultiva: 
Must not that teaching which can alone <iuide the citizen 
in the fulfilment of his public actions. ] that 

acquaints him with the f public acti 

The second chief safeguard to which we must trust i^, 
then, the spread, not of that mere technical and miscella- 
neous knowledge which men are so eagerly propaga 
but of political knowledge; or, to speak more accurately — 
knowledge of Social Science. Above all. the essential 
thing is, the establishment of a true theory of government 



THE SUPREME QUESTION FOR POLITICIANS. 375 



—a true conception of what legislation is for, and what 
are its proper limits. This question which our political 
discussions habitually ignore, is a question of greater mo- 
ment than any other. Inquiries which statesmen deride 
as speculative and unpractical, will one day be found infi- 
nitely more practical than those which they wade through 
Blue Books to master, and nightly spend many hours in 
debating. The considerations that every -morning fill a 
dozen columns of The Times, are mere frivolities when 
compared with the fundamental consideration — What is 
the proper sphere of government ? Before discussing the 
way in which law should regulate some particular thing, 
would it not be wise to put the previous question — 
Whether law ought or ought not to meddle with that 
thing ? and before answering this, to put the more gen- 
eral question — What law should do, and what it should 
leave undone ? Surely, if there are any limits at all to 
legislation, the settlement of these limits must have effects 
far more profound than any particular Act of Parliament 
can have ; and must be by so much the more momentous. 
Surely, if there is danger that the people may misuse po- 
litical power, it is of supreme importance that they should 
be taught for what purpose political power ought alone to 
be used. 

Did the upper classes understand their position, they 
would, we think, see that the diffusion of sound views on 
this matter more nearly concerns their own welfare and 
that of the nation at large, than any other thing whatever. 
Popular influence will inevitably go on increasing. Should 
the masses gain a predominant power while their ideas of 
social arrangements and legislative action remain as crude 
as at present, there will certainly result disastrous med- 
dlings with the relations of capital and labour, as well as 
a disastrous extension of State-administrations. Immense 
damage will be inflicted : primarily on employers ; sec« 



376 PARI IAMENTARY P.EFOEM : THE DAXGEES, ETC. 



ondarily on the employed; and eventually on the nation 
as a whole. These evils can be prevented, only by estab- 
lishing in the public mind a profound conviction that 
there are certain comparatively narrow limits to the func- 
tions of the State ; and that these limits ought on no ac- 
count to be transgressed. Having first learned what these 
limits are, the upper classes ought energetically to use all 
means of teaching them to the people. 

In No. XXIV. of this journal, for October, 1857, we 
endeavoured to show, that while representative govern- 
ment is, by its intrinsic nature, better than any other for 
administering justice or insuring equitable relations of cit- 
izens to each other, it is, by its intrinsic nature, worse 
than any other for all the various additional functions 
which governments commonly undertake. To the ques 
tion — What is representative government good for ? our 
reply was — " It is good, especially good, good above all 
others, for doing the thing which a government should do. 
It is bad, esj>ecially bad, bad above all others, for doing 
the things which a government should not do." 

To this truth we may here add a correlative one. As 
fast as a government, by becoming representative, grows 
better fitted for maintaining the rights of citizens, it 
grows not only unfitted for other purposes, but dangerous 
for other purposes. In gaining adaptation for the i - 
tial function of a government, it loses such adaptation as 
it had for other functions ; not only because its complex- 
ity is a hindrance to administrative action, but also be- 
cause in discharging other functions it must be mischiev- 
ously influenced by class bias. So long as it is confined 
to the duty of preventing the aggressions of individuals 
on each other, and protecting the nation at large against 
external enemies, the wider its basis the better ; for all 
men are similarly interested in the security of life, prop 



THE CORRELATIVE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 371 

erty, and freedom to exercise the faculties. But let it un- 
dertake to bring home positive benefits to citizens, or to 
interfere with any of the special relations between class 
and class, and there necessarily enters an incentive to in- 
justice. For in no such cases can the immediate interests 
of all classes be alike. Therefore do we say that as fast aa 
representation is extended, the sphere of government must 
be contracted. 

Postscript. — Since the foregoing pages were written, 
Lord John Russell has introduced his Reform Bill ; and 
in application of the general principles we contend for, a 
few words may fitly be added respecting it. 

Of the extended county-franchise most will approve, 
save those whose illegitimate influence is diminished by it. 
Adding to the rural constituencies a class less directly 
dependent on large landowners, can scarcely fail to be 
beneficial. Even should it not at first perceptibly affect 
the choice of representatives, it will still be a good stimu- 
lus to political education and to consequent future bene- 
fits. Of the redistribution of seats, little is to be said, 
further than that, however far short it may fall of an equit- 
able arrangement, it is perhaps as much as can at present 
be obtained. 

Whether the right limit for the borough-franchise has 
been chosen, is, on the other hand, a question that admits 
of much discussion. Some hesitation will probably be 
felt by all who duly weigh the evidence on both sides. 
Believing, as we do, that the guidance of abstract equity, 
however much it may need qualification, must never be ig- 
nored, we should be glad were it at once practicable more 
nearly to follow it ; since it is certain that only as fast as 
the injustice of political exclusion is brought to an end, 
will the many political injustices which grow out of it, 
disappear. Nevertheless, we are convinced that the forms 



378 PARLIAMENTARY REFOEM \ THE DANGERS, ETC. 

which freedom requires, Trill not of themselves produce 
the reality of freedom, in the absence of an appropriate 
national character, any more than the most perfect mechan- 
ism will do its work in the absence of a motive power. 
There seems good reason to think that the degree of lib- 
erty a people is capable of in any given age, is a fixed 
quantity ; and that any artificial extension of it in one di- 
rection, simply brings about an equivalent limitation in 
some other direction. French republics show scarcely any 
more respect for individual rights than the despotisms 
they supplant ; and French electors use their freedom to 
put themselves again in slavery. In America, the feeble 
restraints imposed by the State are supplemented by the 
strong restraints of a public opinion which, in many re- 
spects, holds the citizens in greater bondage than here. 

And if there needs a demonstration that representative 
equality is an insufficient safeguard for freedom, we have 
it in the trades'-unions already referred to ; which, purely 
democratic as is their organization, yet exercise over their 
members a tyranny that is almost Neapolitan in its rigour 
and unscrupulousness. The greatest attainable amount 
of individual liberty of action, being the true end ; and 
the diffusion of political power being regarded mainly as 
a means to tills end ; the real question when considering 
further extensions of the franchise, is — whether the aver- 
age liberty of action of citizens will be increased? — 
whether men will be severally freer than before to pursue 
the objects of life in their own way? Or, in the present 
case, the question is — whether the good which £7, £6, oi 
£5 householders would undoubtedly do in helping to abol- 
ish existing injustices, will be partly or wholly neutralized 
by the evil they might do in establishing other injustices? 
The desideratum is, as large an increase in the number 
of electors as can be made without enabling the people 
to carry out their delusive schemes of over-legislation 



379 

Whether the increase proposed is greater or less than this, 
is the essential point. Let us briefly consider the evidence 
on each side. 

As shown by Lord J. Russell's figures, the new bor- 
ough-electors will consist mainly of artisans ; and these, 
as we have seen, are in great part banded together by a 
common wish to regulate the relations of capital and la- 
bour. As a class, they are not as Lord J. Russell describes 
them, " fitted to exercise the franchise freely and inde- 
pendently." On the contrary, there are no men in the 
community so shackled. They are the slaves of the au- 
thorities they have themselves set up. The dependence 
of farmers on landlords, or of operatives on employers, is 
much less servile ; for they can carry their capital or la- 
bour elsewhere. But the penalty for disobedience to 
trades-union dictates, pursues the rebel throughout the 
kingdom. Hence the great mass of the new borough- 
electors must be expected to act simultaneously, on the 
word of command being issued from a central council of 
united trades. . Even while we write, we meet with fresh 
reason for anticipating this result. An address from the 
Conference of the Building Trades to the working classes 
throughout the kingdom, has just been published, thank- 
ing them for their support ; advising the maintenance of 
the organization ; anticipating future success in their aims : 
and intimating the propriety of recommencing the nine- 
hours' agitation. We must, then, be prepared to see these 
industrial questions made leading questions ; for artisans 
have a much keener interest in them than in any others. 
And we may feel certain that many elections will turn 
upon them. 

How many ? There are some thirty boroughs in which 
the nQwly-enfranchised will form an actual majority — will, 
if they act together, be able to outvote the existing elec- 
tors ; even supposing the parties into which they are now 



380 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM I THE DANGERS, ETC 

divided were to unite. In half-a-dozen other boroughs, 
the newly-enfranchised will form a virtual majority — will 
preponderate unless the present liberal and conservative 
voters cooperate with great unanimity, which they will bo 
unlikely to do. And the number proposed to be added to 
the constituency, is one-half or more in nearly fifty other 
boroughs : that is, in nearly fifty other boroughs, the new 
party will be able to arbitrate between the two existing 
parties ; and will give its support to whichever of these 
promises most aid to artisan-schemes. It may be said that 
in this estimate we assume the whole of the new borough- 
electors to belong to the artisan-class, which they do not. 
This is true. But on the other hand it must be remem- 
bered, that among the £10 householders there is a very 
considerable sprinkling of this class, while the freemen 
chiefly consist of it ; and hence the whole artisan body in 
each constituency will probably be not smaller than we 
have assumed. If so, it follows that should the trades- 
union organization be brought to bear on borough-elec 

o o o 

tions, as it is pretty certain to be, it may prevail in some 
eighty or ninety places, and command from 100 to 150 
seats — supposing, that is, that it can obtain as many eligi- 
ble candidates. 

Meanwhile, the county-constituencies in their propose^ 
state, as much as in their existing state, not being undei 
trades-union influence, may be expected to stand in antag- 
onism to the artisan-constituencies, as may also the small 
boroughs. It is just possible, indeed, that irritated by the 
ever-growing power of a rich mercantile class, continually 
treading closer on their heels, the landowners, carrying 
with them their dependents, might join the employed in 
their dictation to employers ; just as, in past times, the 
nobles joined the commonalty against the kings, or the 
kings joined the commonalty against the nobles. But 
leaving out this remote contingency, we may fairly expect 



NATURAL RESTRAINTS OF CLASS-INTERESTS. 381 

the rural constituencies to oppose the large urban ones on 
these industrial questions. Thus, then, the point to be 
decided is, whether the benefits that will result from this 
extended suffrage — benefits which we doubt not will be 
great — may not be secured, while the accompanying evil 
tendencies are kept in check. It may be that these new 
artisan-electors will be powerful for good, while their 
power to work evil will be in a great degree neutralized. 
But this we should like to see well discussed. 

On one question, however, we feel no hesitation ; 
namely, the question of a ratepaying-qualification. From 
Lord John Russell's answer to Mr. Bright, and more re- 
cently from his answer to Mr. Steel, we gather that on 
this point there is to be no alteration — that £Q household- 
ers will stand on the same footing that £10 householders 
do at present. ISTow by the Compound-Householders- Act 
of 1851, to which we have already referred, it is provided 
that tenants of £10 houses whose rates are paid by their 
landlords, shall, after having once tendered payment of 
rates to the authorities, be thereafter considered as rate- 
payers, and have votes accordingly. That is to say, the 
ratepaying-qualification is made nominal ; and that in 
practice it has become so, is proved by the fact that under 
this Act, 4,000 electors were suddenly added to the con 
stituency of Manchester. 

The continuance and extension of this arrangement, 
we conceive to be wholly vicious. Already we have 
shown that the incidence of taxation ought to be made 
more direct as fast as popular power is increased ; and 
that, as diminishing the elector's personal experience of 
the costs of public administration, this abolition of a rate- 
paying-qualification is a retrograde step. But this is by 
no means the sole ground for disapproval. The ratepay- 
ing-qualification is a valuable test — a test which tends to 
separate the more worthy of the working classes from the 



382 PAELIAMEXTAEY EEFOEXt '. THE DAXGEE?, ETC 



less worthy. Nay more, it tends to select for enfrancni de- 
merit, those who have the moral and intellectual qualities 
especially required for judicious political conduct. For 
what general mental characteristic does judicious political 
conduct presuppose ? The power of realizing remote con- 
sequences. People who are misled by demagogues, are 
those who are impressed with the proximate results set 
forth to them, but are not impressed by the distant results, 
even when these are explained — regard them as vague, 
shadowy, theoretical, and are not to be deterred by them 
from clutching at a promised boon. Conversely, the wise 
citizen is the one who conceives the distant evils so clearly, 
that they are practically present to him, and thus out- 
weigh the immediate temptation. Now these are just the 
respective characteristics of the two classes of tenants 
whom a ratepayii)L r ^inalification separates: — the one hav- 
ing their rates paid by their landlords, and bo losing their 
votes; the other paying their own rates, that they may 
get votes : — the one unable to resist present temptal 
unable to save money, and therefore so inconvenienced by 
the payment of rates as to be disfranchised rather than 
pay them ; the other resisting present temptations and 
saving money, with the view, among other ends, of pay- 
ing rates and becoming electors. Trace their respective 
traits to their sources, and it becomes manifest, that, on 
the average, the pecuniarily improvident must be also the 
politically improvident ; and that the politically provident 
must be far more numerous among those who are pecii- 
niarilv provident. Hence, it is a folly to throw aside a 
regulation under which these spontaneously separate them- 
selves — severally disfranchise themselves and enfranchise 
themselves. 



XL 

MILL versus HAMILTON— THE TEST 01 
TRUTH. 



BRITISH speculation, to which, notwithstanding adverse 
Continental opinion, the chief initial ideas and estab- 
lished truths of Modern Philosophy are due, is no longer 
dormant. By his System of Logic, Mr. Mill probably did 
more than any other writer to re-awaken it. And to the 
great service he thus rendered some twenty years ago, he 
now adds by his JExamination of Sir William Hamilton? s 
Philosophy — a work which, taking the views of Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton as texts, reconsiders sundry ultimate ques- 
tions that still remain unsettled. 

Among these questions is one of great importance 
which has already been the subject of controversy between 
Mr. Mill and others ; and this question I propose to discuss 
afresh. Before doing so, however, it will be desirable to 
glance at two cardinal doctrines of the Hamiltonian phi- 
losophy from which Mr. Mill shows reasons for dissenting 
— desirable, because comment on them will elucidate what 
is to follow. 

In his fifth chapter, Mr. Mill points out that " what 
is rejected as knowledge by Sir William Hamilton," is 
"brought back by him under the name of belief." The 
17 



384 THE TEST OF TBUTH. 

quotations justify this description of Sir W. Hamilton's 
position; and warrant the assertion that the relativity of 
knowledge was held by him in but a nominal sense. His 
inconsistency may, I think, be traced to the use of the 
word "belief" in two quite different senses. We com- 
monly say we " believe " a thing for which we can assign 
some preponderating evidence, or concerning which we 
have received some indefinable impression. "We believe 
that the next House of Commons will not abolish Church- 
rates ; or we believe that a person on whose face we look 
is good-natured. That is, when we can give confessedly- 
inadequate proofs or no proofs at all for the things we 
think, we call them " beliefs." And it is the peculiarity 
of these beliefs, as contrasted with cognitions, that their 
connections with antecedent states of consciousness may 
be easily severed, instead of being difficult to sever. But 
unhappily, the word " belief" is also applied to each of 
those temporarily or permanently indissoluble connections 
in consciousness, for the accej^tance of which the only war- 
rant is that it cannot be got rid of. Saying that I feel a 
pain, or hear a sound, or see one line to be longer than 
another, is saying that there has occurred in me a certain 
change of state ; and it is impossible for me to give a 
stronger evidence of this fact than that it is present to my 
mind. The tissue of every argument, too, is resolvable 
into affections of consciousness that have no warrants be- 
yond themselves. "When asked why I assert some me- 
diately-known truth, as that the three angles of a triangle 
are equal to two right angles, I find that the proof may be 
decomposed into steps, each of which is an immediate con- 
sciousness that certain two quantities or two relations are 
equal or unequal — a consciousness for which no further evi- 
dence is assignable than that it exists in me. Xor, on 
finally getting down to some axiom underlying the whole 
fabric of demonstration, can I say more than that it is a 



DOUBLE USE OF THE TERM " BELIEFS." 385 

truth of which I am immediately conscious. But now ob- 
serve the confusion that has arisen. The immense major- 
ity of truths which we accept as beyond doubt, and from 
which our notion of unquestionable truth is abstracted, 
have this other trait in common — they are severally estab- 
lished by affiliation on deeper truths. These two charac- 
ters have become so associated, that one seems to imply 
the other. For each truth of geometry we are able to 
assign some wider truth in which it is involved ; for that 
wider truth we are able, if required, to assign some still 
wider ; and so on, This being the general nature of the 
demonstration by which exact knowledge is established, 
there has arisen the illusion that knowledge so established 
is knowledge of higher validity than that immediate 
knowledge which has nothing deeper to rest on. The 
habit of asking for proof, and having proof given, in all 
these multitudinous cases, has produced the implication 
that proof may be asked for those ultimate dicta of con- 
sciousness into which all proof is resolvable. And then, 
because no proof of these can be given, there arises the 
vague feeling that they are akin to other things of which 
no proof can be given — that they are uncertain — that they 
have unsatisfactory bases. This feeling is strengthened by 
the accompanying misuse of words. " Belief" having, as 
above pointed out, become the name of an impression for 
which we can give only a confessedly-inadequate reason, 
or no reason at all ; it happens that when pushed hard re- 
specting the warrant for any ultimate dictum of conscious- 
ness, we say, in the absence of all assignable reason, that 
we believe it. Thus the two opposite poles of knowledge 
go under the same name ; and by the reverse connotations 
of this name, as used for the most coherent and least co- 
herent relations of thought, profound misconceptions have 
been generated. Here, it seems to me, is the source of Sir 
William Hamilton's error. Classing as " beliefs " those 



386 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

direct, undecomposable dicta of consciousness which tran- 
scend proof, he asserts that these are of higher authority 
than knowledge (meaning by knowledge that for which 
reasons can he given) ; and in asserting this he is fully jus- 
tified. But when he claims equal authority for those affec- 
tions of consciousness which go under the same name of 
" beliefs," but differ in being extremely-indirect affections 
of consciousness, or not definite affections of consciousness 
at all, the claim cannot be admitted. By his own show- 
ing, no positive cognition answering to the word " infi- 
nite" exists; w T hile, contrariwise, those cognitions which he 
rightly holds to be above question, are not only positive, 
but have the peculiarity that they cannot be suppn 
How, then, can the two be grouped together as of like de- 
grees of validity ? 

Nearly allied in nature to this, is another Hamiltonian 
doctrine, which Mr. Mill very effectively combats. I refer 
to the corollary respecting noumenal existence which Sir 
William Hamilton draws from the law of the Excluded 
Middle, or, as it might be more intelligibly called, the 
law of the Alternative Necessity. A thing must either 
exist or not exist — must have a certain attribute or not 
have it : there is no third possibility. This is a postulate 
of all thought ; and in so far as it is alleged of phenome- 
nal existence, no one calls it in question. But Sir William 
Hamilton, applying the formula beyond the limits of 
thought, draws from it certain conclusions respecting 
things as they are, apart from our consciousness. He - 
for example, that though we cannot conceive Space as 
infinite or as finite, yet, " on the principle of the Excluded 
Middle, one or other must be admitted." This inference 
Mr. Mill shows good reason for rejecting. His argument 
may be supplemented by another, w^hich at once sngg 
itself if from the words of Sir William Hamilton's propo- 
sitions we pass to the thoughts for which they are sup] 



ANTITHETIC STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 387 

to stand. When remembering a certain thing as in a cer- 
tain place, the place and the thing are mentally repre- 
sented together ; while to think of the non-existence of the 
thing in that place, implies a consciousness in which the 
place is represented but not the thing. Similarly, if, in- 
stead of thinking of an object as colorless, we think of it 
as having color, the change consists in the addition to the 
concept of an element that was before absent from it — the 
object cannot be thought of first as red and then as not 
red, without one component of the thought being totally 
expelled from the mind by another. The doctrine of the 
Excluded Middle, then, is simply a generalization of the 
universal experience that some mental states are directly 
destructive of other states. It formulates a certain abso- 
lutely-constant law, that no positive mode of consciousness 
can occur without excluding a correlative negative mode ; 
and that the negative mode cannot occur without exclud- 
ing the correlative positive mode : the antithesis of posi- 
tive and negative, being, indeed, merely an expression of 
this experience. Hence it follows that if consciousness is 
not in one of the two modes, it must be in the other. But 
now, under what conditions only can this law of conscious- 
ness hold ? It can hold only so long as there are positive 
states of consciousness that can exclude the negative states, 
and which the negative states can in their turn exclude. 
If we are not concerned with positive states of conscious- 
ness at all, no such mutual exclusion takes place, and the 
law of the Alternative Necessity does not apply. Here, 
then, is the flaw in Sir William Hamilton's proposition. 
That Space must be infinite or finite, are alternatives of 
which we are not obliged to regard one as necessary, see- 
ing that we have no state of consciousness answering to 
either of these words as applied to the totality of Space, 
and therefore no exclusion of two antagonist states of con- 
sciousness by one another. Both alternatives being ur»- 



388 THE TEST OF TEIJTH. 

thinkable, the proposition should be put thus : Space is 
either or is ; neither of which can be con- 

ceived, but one of which must be true. In this, as in 
other cases, Sir William Hamilton continues to work out 
the forms of thought when they no longer contain any 
substance ; and, of course, reaches nothing more than ver- 
bal conclusions. 

Ending here these comments on doctrines of Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton, which Mr. Mill rejects on grounds that 
will be generally recognized as valid, let me now pass to a 
doctrine, partly held by Sir William Hamilton, and held 
by others in ways variously qualified and variously extend- 
ed — a doctrine which, I think, may be successfully defended 
against Mr. Mill's attack. 

In the fourth and fifth editions of his Zogic, Mr. Mill 
treats, at considerable length, the question, Is inconceiva- 
bility an evidence of untruth ? — replying to criticisms pre- 
viously made on his reasons for asserting that it is not. 
The chief answers which he there makes to these criti- 
cisms, turn upon the interpretation of the word inconceiv- 
able. This word he considers is used as the equivalent 
of the word unbelievable; and, translating it thus, read- 
ily disposes of sundry arguments brought against him. 
Whether any others who have used these words in philo- 
sophical discussion, have made them synonymous, I do not 
know ; but that they are so used in those reasonings of 
my own which Mr. Mill combats, I was not conscious, and 
was surprised to find alleged. It is now manifest that I 
had not adequately guarded myself against the miscon- 
struction which is liable to arise from the double mean- 
ing of the word belief- — a word which, we have seen, is 
used for the most coherent and the least coherent connec- 
tions in consciousness, because they have the common 
character that no reason is assignable for them. Through- 



"unbelievable" and "inconceivable. 5 ' 389 

out the argument to wliicli Mr. Mill replies, the word is 
used only in the first of these senses. The " invariably 
existent beliefs," the " indestructible beliefs," are the indis- 
soluble connections in consciousness — never the dissoluble 
ones. But unbelievable implies the dissoluble ones. By 
association with the other and more general meaning of 
the word belief, the word unbelievable suggests cases where 
the proposition admits of being represented in thought, 
though it may be with difficulty ; and where, consequently, 
the counter-proposition admits of being decomposed. To 
be quite sure of our ground, let us define and illustrate the 
meanings of inconceivable and unbelievable. An incon- 
ceivable proposition is one of which the terms cannot, by 
any effort, be brought before consciousness in that relation 
which the proposition asserts between them — a proposi- 
tion of which the subject and the predicate offer an insur- 
mountable resistance to union in thought. An unbeliev- 
able proposition is one which admits of being framed in 
thought, but is so much at variance with experience, in 
which its terms have habitually been otherwise united, 
that its terms cannot be put in the alleged relation with- 
out effort. Thus, it is unbelievable that a cannon-ball 
fired from England should reach America ; but it is not 
inconceivable. Conversely, it is inconceivable that one 
side of a triangle is equal to the sum of the other two 
sides — not simply unbelievable. The two sides cannot be 
represented in consciousness as becoming equal in their 
joint length to the third side, without the representation 
of a triangle being destroyed ; and the concept of a trian- 
gle cannot be framed without a simultaneous destruction 
of a concept in which these magnitudes are represented as 
equal. That is to say, the subject and predicate cannot be 
united in the same intuition — the proposition is unthink- 
able. It is in this sense only that I have used the word 
inconceivable ; and only when rigorously restricted to this 



890 THE TEST OB TRUTH. 

sense do I regard the test of inconceivableness as having 
any value. 

I had concuded that when this explanation was made, 
Mr. Mill's reasons for dissent would be removed. Passages 
in his recently-published volume, however, show that, even 
restricting the use of the word inconceivable to the mean 
ing here specified, he still denies that a proposition is 
proved to be true by the inconceivableness of its negation. 
To meet, within any moderate compass, all the issues which 
have grown out of the controversy, is difficult. Before 
passing to the essential question, however, I will endeavor 
to clear the ground of certain minor questions. 

Describing Sir "William Hamilton's doctrine respecting 
the ultimate facts of consciousness, or those which are 
above proof, Mr. Mill writes : 

" The only condition he requires is that we be not able 
to ' reduce it (a fact of this class) to a generalization from 
experience.' This condition is realized by its possessing 
the * character of necessity.' ' It must be impossible not 
to think it. In fact, by its necessity alone can we recog- 
nize it as an original datum of intelligence, and distinguish 
it from any mere result of generalization and custom. In 
this Sir William Hamilton is at one with the whole of his 
own section of the philosophical world ; with Reid, with 
Stewart, with Cousin, with Whewell, we may add, with 
Kant, and even with Mr. Herbert Spencer. The test by 
which they all decide a belief to be a part of our primitive 
consciousness — an original intuition of the mind — is the 
necessity of thinking it. Their proof that we must al- 
ways, from the beginning, have had the belief, is the im- 
possibility of getting rid of it now. This argument, ap- 
plied to any of the disputed questions of philosophy, is 
doubly illegitimate : neither the major nor the minor prem- 
ise is admissible. For in the first place, the very fact that 
the question is disputed, disproves the alleged impossibil- 



391 

ity. Those against whom it is needful to defend the be- 
lief which is affirmed to be necessary, are unmistakable 
examples that it is not necessary. .... These philoso- 
phers, therefore, and among them Sir William Hamilton, 
mistake altogether the true conditions of psychological 
investigation, when, instead of proving a belief to be an 
original fact of consciousness by showing that it could not 
have been acquired, they conclude that it was not ac- 
quired, for the reason, often false, and never sufficiently sub- 
stantiated, that our consciousness cannot get rid of it now." 
This representation, in so far as it concerns my own 
views, has somewhat puzzled me. Considering that I have 
avowed a general agreement with Mr. Mill in the doctrine 
that all knowledge is from experience, and have defended 
the test of inconceivableness on the very ground that it 
" expresses the net result of our experience up to the pres- 
ent time" [Principles of Psychology, pp. 22, 23) — consid- 
ering that, so far from asserting the distinction quoted 
from Sir William Hamilton, I have aimed to abolish such 
distinction — considering that I have endeavored to show 
how all our conceptions, even down to those of Space and 
Time, are " acquired " — considering that I have sought to 
interpret forms of thought (and by implication all intui- 
tions) as products of organized and inherited experiences 
(Principles of Psychology, p. 579) — I am taken aback at 
finding myself classed as in the above paragraph. Leav- 
ing the personal question, however, let me pass to the as- 
sertion that the difference of opinion respecting the test of 
necessity itself disproves the validity of the test. Two 
issues are here involved. First, if a particular proposition 
is by some accepted as a necessary belief, but by one or 
more denied to be a necessary belief, is the validity of the 
test of necessity thereby disproved in respect of that par- 
ticular proposition ? Second, if the validity of the test is 
disproved in respect of that particular proposition, does it 



392 TEE TEST OF TRUTH. 

therefore follow that the test cannot "be depended on in 
other cases ? — does it follow that there are no beliefs uni- 
versally accepted as necessary, and in respect of which the 
test of necessity is valid ? Each of these questions may, 
I think, be rightly answered in the negative. 

In alleging that if a belief is said by some to be neces- 
sary, but by others to be not necessary, the test of neces- 
sity is thereby shown to be no test, Mr. Mill tacitly as- 
sumes that all men have powers of introspection enabling 
them in all cases to say what consciousness testifies ; 
whereas a great proportion of men are incapable of cor- 
rectly interpreting consciousness in any but its simplest 
modes, and even the remainder are liable to mistake for 
dicta of consciousness what prove on closer examination 
not to be its dicta. Take the case of an arithmetical blun- 
der. A boy adds up a column of figures, and brings out a 
wrong total. Again he does it, and again errs. His mas- 
ter asks him to go through the process aloud, and then 
hears him say " So and 9 are 46 " — an error which he had 
repeated on each occasion. Xow, without discussing the 
mental act through which we know that 35 and 9 are 44, 
and through which we recognize the necessity of this rela- 
tion, it is clear that the boy's misinterpretation of con- 
sciousness, leading him tacitly to deny this necessity by 
asserting that " So and 9 are 46,"' cannot be held to prove 
that the relation is not necessary. This, and kindred mis- 
judgments daily made by the most disciplined account- 
ants, merely show that there is a liability to overlook what 
are necessary connections in our thoughts, and to assume 
as necessary others which are not. In these and hosts of 
cases, men do not distinctly translate into their equivalent 
states of consciousness the words they use. This negli- 
gence is with many so habitual, that they are unaware that 
they have not clearly represented to themselves the propo- 
sitions they assert ; and are then apt, quite sincerely though 



DENIAL OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. 393 

erroneously, to assert that they can think things which it 
is really impossible to think. 

But supposing it to be true that whenever a particular 
belief is alleged to be necessary, the existence of some 
who profess themselves able to believe otherwise, proves 
that this belief is not necessary ; must it be therefore ad- 
mitted that the test of necessity is invalid ? I think not. 
Men may mistake for necessary, certain beliefs which are 
not necessary ; and yet it may remain true that there are 
necessary beliefs, and that the necessity of such beliefs is 
our warrant for them. Were conclusions thus tested 
proved to be wrong in a hundred cases, it would not fol- 
low that the test is an invalid one ; any more than it would 
follow from a hundred errors in the use of a logical for- 
mula, that the logical formula is invalid. If from the 
premise that all horned animals ruminate, it were inferred 
that the rhinoceros, being a horned animal, ruminates ; the 
error would furnish no argument against the worth of syl- 
logisms in general — whatever their worth may be. Daily 
there are thousands of erroneous deductions which, by 
those who draw them, are supposed to be warranted by 
the data from which they draw them ; but no multiplica- 
tion of such erroneous deductions is regarded as proving 
that there are no deductions truly drawn, and that the 
drawing of deductions is illegitimate. In these cases, as 
in the case to which they are here paralleled, the only 
thing shown is the need for verification of data and criti- 
cism of the acts of consciousness. 

" This argument," says Mr. Mill, referring to the argu- 
ment of necessity, " applied to any of the disputed ques- 
tions of philosophy, is doubly illegitimate ; . . . the very 
fact that the question is disputed, disproves the alleged 
impossibility." Besides the foregoing replies to this, there 
is another. Granting that there have been appeals illegiti- 
mately made to this test — granting that there are many 



394 THE TEST OF TEUTH. 

questions too complex to be settled by it, which men hav( 
nevertheless proposed to settle by it, and have conse- 
quently got into controversy; it may yet be truly asserted 
that in respect of all, or almost all, questions legitimately 
brought to judgment by this test, there is no dispute about 
the answer. From the earliest times on record down to 
our own, men have not changed their beliefs concerning 
the truths of number. The axiom that if equals be added 
to unequals the sums are unequal, was held by the Greeks 
no less than by ourselves, as a direct verdict of conscious- 
ness, from which there is no escape and no appeal. Each 
of the propositions of Euclid appears to us as absolutely 
beyond doubt as it did to them. Each step in each dem- 
onstration Ave accept, as they accepted it, because we im- 
mediately see that the alleged relation is as alleged, and 
that it is impossible to conceive it otherwise. 

But how are legitimate appeals to the test to be dis- 
tinguished? The answer is not difficult to find. Mr. Mill 
cites the belief in the antipodes as having been rejected 
by the Greeks because inconceivable, but as being held by 
ourselves to be both conceivable and true. He has before 
given this instance, and I have before objected to it {Prin- 
ciples of Psychology, p. 32), for the reason that the states 
of consciousness involved in the judgment are too complex 
to admit of any trustworthy verdict being given. An 
illustration will show the difference between a legitimate 
appeal to the test and an illegitimate appeal to it. a and 
b are two lines. How is it decided that they are equal or 
not equal ? Xo way is open but that of comparing the 
two impressions they make on consciousness. I know 
them to be unequal by an immediate act, if the difference 
is great, or if, though only moderately different, they are 
close together ; and supposing the difference is but slight, 
I decide the question by putting the lines in apposition 
when they are movable, or by carrying a movable line 






ILLEGITIMATE APPEALS TO IT. 



395 



B 





from one to the other if they are fixed. But in any case, 
[ obtain in consciousness the testimony that the impression 
produced by the one line differs from that produced by the 
other. Of this difference I can give no further evidence 
than that I am conscious of it, and find it impossible, while 
contemplating the lines, to get rid of the consciousness. 
The proposition that the lines are unequal is a proposition 
of which the negation is inconceivable. But now suppose 
it is asked whether b and c are equal ; or whether c and d 
are equal. No positive answer is possible. Instead of its 
being inconceivable that b is longer than c, or equal to it, 
or shorter, it is conceivable that it is any one of the three. 
Here an appeal to the direct verdict of consciousness is 
illegitimate, because on transferring the attention from b 
to c, or c to d, the changes in the other elements of the 
impressions so entangle the elements to be compared, as to 
prevent them from being put in apposition. If the ques- 
tion of relative length is to be determined, it must be by 
rectification of the bent line ; and this is done through a se- 
ries of steps, each one of which involves an immediate judg- 
ment akin to that by which a and b are compared. Now 
as here, so in other cases, it is only simple percepts or con- 
cepts respecting the relations of which immediate con- 
sciousness can satisfactorily testify; and as here, so in 
other cases, it is by resolution into such simple percepts 



396 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

and concepts, that true judgments respecting complex per 
cepts and concepts are reached. That things which are 
equal to the same thing are equal to one another, js a fact 
which can he known by direct comparison of a3tual or 
ideal relations, and can be known in no other way: the 
proposition is one of which the negation is inconceivable, 
and is rightly asserted on that warrant. But that the 
square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle equals 
the sum of the squares of the other two sides, cannot be 
known immediately by comparison of two states of con- 
sciousness. Here the truth can be reached only mediately, 
through a series of simple judgments respecting the like- 
nesses or unlikencsses of certain relations : eacli of which 
judgments is essentially of the same kind as that by which 
the above axiom is known, and has the same warrant. 
Thus it becomes apparent that the fallacious result of the 
test of necessity which Mr. Mill instances, is due to a mis- 
application of the test. 

These preliminary explanations have served to make 
clear the question at issue. Let us now pass to the essence 
of it. 

Metaphysical reasoning is usually vitiated by some 
covert petitio principii. Either the thing to be proved or 

the thing to be disproved, is tacitly assumed to be true in 
the course of the proof or disproof. It is thus with the 
argument of Idealism. Though the conclusion reached is 
that Mind and Ideas are the only existences : yet the steps 
by which this conclusion is reached, take for granted that 
external objects have just the kind of independent ea> 
istence which is eventually denied. If that extension 
which the Idealist contends is merely an affection of con- 
sciousness, has nothing out of conseiousness answering to 
it ; then, in each of his propositions concerning extension, 
Ihe word should always mean an affection of conscious 



IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM. 397 

ness, and nothing more. But if wherever he speaks of dis- 
tances and dimensions we write ideas of distances and di- 
mensions, his propositions are reduced to nonsense. So, 
too, is it with Scepticism. The resolution of all knowledge 
into " impressions " and " ideas," is effected by an analysis 
which assumes at every step an objective reality producing 
the impressions and the subjective reality receiving them. 
The reasoning becomes impossible if the existence of ob- 
ject and subject be not admitted at the outset. Agree 
with the Sceptic's doubt, and then propose to revise his 
argument so that it may harmonize with his doubt. Of 
the two alternatives between which he halts, assume, first, 
the reality of object and subject. His argument is practi- 
cable ; whether valid or not. Now assume that object 
and subject do not exist. He cannot stir a step toward 
his conclusion — nay, he cannot even state his conclusion ; 
for the word " impression " cannot be translated into 
thought without assuming a thing impressing and a thing 
impressed. 

Though Empiricism, as at present understood, is not 
thus suicidal, it is open to an analogous criticism on its 
method, similarly telling against the validity of its infer- 
ence. It proposes to account for our so-called necessary 
beliefs, as well as all our other beliefs ; and to do this 
without postulating any one belief as necessary. Bring- 
ing forward abundant evidence that the connections among 
our states of consciousness are determined by our expe- 
riences — that two experiences frequently recurring to- 
gether in consciousness, become so coherent that one 
strongly suggests the other, and that when their joint re- 
currence is perpetual and invariable, the connection be- 
tween them becomes indissoluble ; it argues that the indis- 
solubility, so produced, is all that we mean by necessity. 
And then it seeks to explain each of our so-called neces- 
sary beliefs as thus originated. Now could pure Empiri 



398 THE TEST OF TBUTH. 

cism reach this analysis and its subsequent synthesis with« 
out taking any thing for granted, its arguments would be 
unobjectionable. But it cannot do this. Examine its 
phraseology, and there arises the question, Experiences of 
what? Translate tl;e word into thought, and it clearly 
involves something more than states of mind and the con- 
nections among them. For if it does not, then the hy- 
pothesis is that states of mind are generated by the expe- 
riences of states of mind ; and if the inquiry be pursued, 
this ends with initial states of mind which are not ac- 
counted for — the hypothesis fails. Evidently, there is ta- 
citly assumed something beyond the mind by which the 
" experiences " are produced — something in which exist 
the objective relations to which the subjective relations 
correspond — an external world. Refuse thus to explain 
the word " experiences," and the hypothesis becomes mean- 
ingless. But now, having thus postulated an external 
reality as the indispensable foundation of its reasonings, 
pure Empiricism can subsequently neither prove nor dis- 
prove its postulate. An attempt to disprove it, or to give 
it any other meaning than that originally involved, is Mii- 
cidal ; and an attempt to establish it by inference is rea- 
soning in a circle. What then are we to say of this prop- 
osition on which Empiricism rests ? Is it a necessary be- 
lief, or is it not ? If necessary, the hypothesis in its pure 
form is abandoned. If not necessary — if not posited d 
priori as absolutely certain — then the hypothesis rests on 
an uncertainty ; and the whole fabric of its argument is 
unstable. More than this is true. Besides the insecurity 
implied by building on a foundation that is confessclly 
not beyond question, there is the much greater insecurity 
implied by raising proposition upon proposition of which 
eaeh is confessedly not beyond question. For to say that 
there are no necessary truths, is to say that each suceessive 
inference is not necessarily involved in its premises — is 



THE ASSUMPTIONS OF EMPIEICISM. 399 

an empirical judgment — a judgment not certainly true. 
Hence, applying rigorously its own doctrine, we find that 
pure Empiricism, starting from an uncertainty and pro- 
gressing through a series of uncertainties, cannot claim 
much certainty for its conclusion. 

Doubtless, it may be replied that any theory of human 
knowledge must set out with assumptions — either perma- 
nent or provisional; and that the validity of these assump- 
tions is to be determined by the results reached through 
them. But that such assumptions may be made legiti- 
mately, two things are required. In the first place they 
must not be multiplied step after step as occasion requires ; 
otherwise the conclusion reached might as well be assumed 
at once. And in the second place, the fact that they are 
assumptions must not be lost sight of: the conclusions 
drawn must not be put forward as though they have a 
certainty which the premises have not. Now pure Em- 
piricism, in common with other theories of knowledge, is 
open to the criticism, that it neglects thus avowedly to 
recognize the nature of those primary assumptions which 
it lays down as provisionally valid, if it denies that they 
can be necessarily valid. And it is open to the further 
criticism, that it goes on at every step in its argument 
making assumptions which it neglects to specify as provis- 
ional ; since they, too, cannot be known as necessary. 
Until it has assigned some warrant for its original datum 
and for each of its subsequent inferences, or else has ac- 
knowledged them all to be but hypothetical, it may be 
stopped either at the outset or at any stage in its argu- 
ment. Against every " because " and every " therefore," 
an opponent may enter a caveat, until he is told why it is 
asserted : contending, as he may, that if this inference is 
not necessary he is not bound to accept it ; and that if it 
is necessary it must be openly declared to be necessary, 



400 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

and some test must be assigned by which it is distinguished 
from propositions that are not necessary. 

These considerations will, I think, make it obvious that 
the first step in a metaphysical argument, rightly carried 
on, must be an examination of propositions for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining what character is common to those 
which we call unquestionably true, and is implied by as- 
serting their unquestionable truth. Further, to carry on 
this inquiry legitimately, we must restrict our analysis 
rigorously to states of consciousness considered in their 
relations to one another : wholly ignoring any thing be- 
yond consciousness to which these states and their rela- 
tions may be supposed to refer. For if, before we have 
ascertained by comparing propositions what is the trait 
that leads us to class some of them as certainly true, we 
avowedly or tacitly take for granted the existence of 
something beyond consciousness ; then, a particular prop- 
osition is assumed to be certainly true before we have as- 
certained what is the distinctive character of the proposi- 
tions which we call certainly true, and the analysis is 
vitiated. If we cannot transcend consciousness — if, there- 
fore, what we know as truth must be some mental state, 
or some combination of mental states ; it must be possible 
for us to say in what way we distinguish this state or these 
states. The definition of truth must be expressible in 
terms of consciousness ; and, indeed, cannot otherwise be 
expressed if consciousness cannot be transcended. Clear- 
ly, then, the metaphysician's first step must be to shut out 
from his investigation every thing but what is subjective ; 
not taking for granted the existence of any thing objective 
corresponding to his ideas, until he has ascertained what 
property of his ideas it is which he predicates by calling 
them true. Let us note the result if he does this. 

The words of a proposition are the signs of certain 



NATUKE AND ELEMENTS OF A PEOPOSITION. 401 

Btates of consciousness ; and the thing alleged by a propo- 
sition is the connection or disconnection of the states of 
consciousness signified. When thinking is carried on with 
precision — when the mental states which we call words, 
are translated into the mental states they symbolize (which 
they very frequeatly are not) — thinking a proposition con- 
sists in the occurrence together in consciousness of the 
subject and predicate. " The bird was brown," is a prop- 
osition which implies the union in thought of a particular 
attribute with a group of other attributes. When the in- 
quirer compares various propositions thus rendered into 
states of consciousness, he finds that they differ very greatly 
in respect of the facility with which the states of con- 
sciousness are connected and disconnected. The mental 
state known as brown may be united with those mental 
states which make up the figure known as bird, without 
appreciable effort, or may be separated from them without 
appreciable effort : the bird may easily be thought of as 
black, or green, or yellow. Contrariwise, such an assertion 
as " The ice was hot," is one to which he finds much diffi- 
culty in making his mind respond. The elements of the 
proposition cannot be put together in thought without 
great resistance. Between those other states of conscious- 
ness which the word ice connotes, and the state of con- 
sciousness named cold, there is an extremely strong cohe- 
sion — a cohesion measured by the resistance to be over- 
come in thinking of the ice as hot. Further, he finds that 
in many cases the states of consciousness grouped together 
cannot be separated at all. The idea of pressure cannot 
be disconnected from the idea of something occupying 
space. Motion cannot be thought of without an object 
that moves being at the same time thought of. And then, 
besides these connections in consciousness which remain 
absolute under all circumstances, there are others which 
remain absolute under special circumstances. Between 



£02 THE TEST OF TEUTH. 

the elements of those more vivid states of consciousness 
which the inquirer distinguishes as perceptions, he finds 
that there is a temporarily-indissoluble cohesion. Though 
when there arises in him that comparatively faint state of 
consciousness which he calls the idea of a book, he can 
easily think of the book as red, or brown, or green ; yet 
when he has that much stronger consciousness which he 
calls seeing a book, he finds that so long as there continue 
certain accompanying states of consciousness which he 
calls the conditions to perception, those several states of 
consciousness which make up the perception cannot be dis- 
united — he cannot think of the book as red, or green, or 
brown ; but finds that, along with a certain figure, there 
absolutely coheres a certain color. 

Still shutting -himself up within these limits, let us 
suppose the inquirer to ask himself what he thinks about 
these various decrees of cohesion amono; his states of con- 
sciousness — how he names them, and how he behaves 
toward them. If there comes, no matter whence, the 
proposition — " The bird was brown," subject and predi- 
cate answering to these words spring up together in con- 
sciousness ; and if there is no opposing proposition, he 
unites the specified and implied attributes without effort, 
and believes the proposition. If, however, the proposition 
is — " The bird was necessarily brown," lie makes an ex- 
periment like those above described, and finding that he 
can separate the attribute of brownness, and can think of 
the bird as green or yellow, he does not admit that the 
bird was necessarily brown. When such a proposition as 
" The ice was cold" arises in him, the elements of the 
thought behave as before; and so long as no test is ap 
plied, the union of the conseiousness of cold with the ac- 
companying states of consciousiu.-s, seems to be of the 
same nature as the union between those answering to the 
words broic?i and bird. But should the proposition be 



COHESIONS AMONG STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 403 

changed into — " The ice was necessarily cold," quite a dif- 
ferent result happens from that which happened in the pre- 
vious case. The ideas answering to subject and predicate 
are here so coherent, that in the absence of careful exami- 
nation they might pass as inseparable, and the proposition 
be accepted. But suppose the proposition is deliberately 
tested by trying whether ice can be thought of as not cold. 
Great resistance is offered in consciousness to this. Still, 
by an effort, he can imagine water to have its temperature 
of congelation higher than blood heat ; and can so think 
of congealed water as hot instead of cold. Now the ex- 
tremely strong cohesion of states of consciousness, thus 
experimentally proved by the difficulty of separating them, 
he finds to be what he calls a strong belief. Once more, 
in response to the words — " Along with motion there is 
something that moves," he represents to himself a moving 
body ; and, until he tries an experiment upon it, he may 
suppose the elements of the representation to be united in 
the same way as those of the representations instanced 
above. But supposing the proposition is modified into — 
" Along with motion there is necessarily something that 
moves," the response made in thought to these words, dis- 
closes the fact that the states of consciousness called up in 
this case are indissolubly connected in the way alleged. 
He discovers this by trying to conceive the negation of 
the proposition — by trying to think of motion as not hav- 
ing along with it something that moves ; and his inability 
to conceive this negation is the obverse of his inability to 
tear asunder the states of consciousness which constitute 
the affirmation. Those propositions which survive this 
strain, are the propositions he distinguishes as necessary. 
Whether or not he means any thing else by this word, he 
evidently means that in his consciousness the connections 
they predicate are, so far as he can ascertain, unalterable. 
The bare fact is that he submits to them because he has 



404 THE TEST OF TEETH. 

no choice. They rule his thoughts whether he will or not. 
Leaving out all questions concerning the origin of these 
connections — all theories concerning their significations, 
there remains in the inquirer the consciousness that certain 
of his states of consciousness are so welded together that 
all other links in the chain of consciousness yield before 
these give way. 

Continuing rigorously to exclude every thing beyond 
consciousness, let him now ask himself what he means by 
reasoning ? what is the essential nature of an argument ? 
what is the peculiarity of a conclusion ? Analysis soon 
shows him that reasoning is the formation of a coherent 
series of states of consciousness. He has found that the 
thoughts expressed by propositions, vary in the cohesions 
of their subjects and predicates ; and he finds that at every 
step in an argument, carefully carried on, he tests the 
strengths of all the connections asserted and implied. Tie 
considers whether the object named really does belong to 
the class in which it is included — tries whether he can 
think of it as not like the things it is said to be like. lie 
considers whether the attribute alleged is really | 
by all members of the class — tries to think of some mem- 
ber of the class that has not the attribute. And he ad- 
mits the proposition only on finding, by this criticism, that 
there is a greater degree of cohesion in thought between 
its elements, than between the elements of the counter- 
proposition. Thus testing the strength of each link in the 
argument, he at length reaches the conclusion, which he 
tests in the same way. If he accepts it, he docs so be- 
cause the argument has established in him an indirect 
hesion between states of consciousness that were not li 
rectly coherent, or not so coherent directly as the argu- 
ment makes them indirectly. But he accepts it only sup- 
posing that the connection between the two states ot' 
Bciousness composing it, is not resisted by seme stronger 



VARYING STRENGTH OF THOUGHT COHESIONS. 405 

counter-connection. If there happens to be an opposing 
argument, of which the component thoughts are felt, when 
tested, to be more coherent ; or if, in the absence of an 
opposing argument, there exists an opposing conclusion, 
of which the elements have some direct cohesion greater 
than that which the proffered argument indirectly gives ; 
then the conclusion reached by this argument is not ad- 
mitted. Thus, a discussion in consciousness proves to be 
simply a trial of strength between different connections in 
consciousness — a systematized struggle serving to deter- 
mine which are the least coherent states of consciousness. 
And the result of the struggle is, that the least coherent 
states of consciousness separate, while the most coherent 
remain together — form a proposition of which the predi- 
cate persists in rising up in the mind along with its sub- 
ject — constitute one of the connections in thought which 
is distinguished as something known, or as something be- 
lieved, according' to its strength. 

What corollary may the inquirer draw, or rather what 
corollary must he draw, on pushing the analysis to its 
limit ? If there are any indissoluble connections, he is 
compelled to accept them. If certain states of conscious- 
ness absolutely cohere in certain ways, he is obliged to 
think them in those ways. The proposition is an identical 
one. To say that they are necessities of thought is merely 
another way of saying that their elements cannot be torn 
asunder. ISTo reasoning can give to these absolute cohe- 
sions in thought any better warrant ; since all reasoning, 
being a process of testing cohesions, is itself carried on by 
accepting the absolute cohesions ; and can, in the last re- 
sort, do nothing more than present some absolute cohe- 
sions in justification of others — an act which unwarranta- 
bly assumes in the absolute cohesions it offers, a greater 
value than is allowed to the absolute cohesions it would 
justify. Here, then, the inquirer comes down to an ulti* 






406 TIIE TEST OF TEETH. 

mate mental uniformity — a universal law of Lis thinking. 
How completely his thought is subordinated to this law, 
is shown by the fact that he cannot even represent to him- 
self the possibility of any other law. To suppose the con- 
nections among his states of consciousness to be otherwise 
determined, is to suppose a smaller force overcoming a 
greater — a proposition which may be expressed in words 
but cannot be rendered into ideas. Xo matter what he 
calls these indestructible relations, no matter what he sup- 
poses to be their meanings, he is completely fettered by 
them. Their indestructibility is the proof to hiru that his 
consciousness is imprisoned within tliem ; and supposing 
any of them to be in some way destroyed, he pern 
that indestructibility would still be the distinctive charac- 
ter of the bounds that remained — the test of those which 
he must continue to think. 

These result > the inquirer arrives at without assuming 
any other existence than that of his own conscious: 
They postulate nothing about mind or matter, subject or 
object. They have wholly untouched the questions — 
what does consciousness imply? and how is thought gen- 
erated ? There is not involved in the analysis any hy- 
pothesis respecting the origin of tl. 
thoughts — how there come to b 

cohesions, and absolnte cohesions. Whatever some of the 
terms used may have Beemed to connote, it will be found, 
on examining each Btep, that nothing is essentially in- 
volved beyond states of mind and the connections an. 
them, which are themselves OtJ - of mind. Thus 

far, the argument is nut vitiated by 

Should the inquirer enter upon the question. How are 
these tacts to be explained? lie must consider how any 
further investigation is to be conducted, and what is the 
possible degree of validity of its conclusions. Remem- 
bering that he cannot transcend consciousness, he 



HIGHEST VALIDITY OF THE TEST. 407 

that any thing in the shape of an interpretation must be 
subordinate to the laws of consciousness. Every hypothe- 
sis he entertains in trying to explain himself to himself, 
being an hypothesis which can be dealt with by him only 
in terms of his mental states, it follows that any process 
of explanation must itself be carried on by testing the 
cohesions among mental states, and accepting the absolute 
cohesions. His conclusions, therefore, reached only by re- 
peated recognitions of this test of absolute cohesion, can 
never have any higher validity than this test. It matters 
not what name he gives to a conclusion — whether he calls 
it a belief, a theory, a fact, or a truth. These words can be 
themselves only names for certain relations among his 
states of consciousness. Any secondary meanings which 
he ascribes to them must also be meanings expressed in 
terms of consciousness, and therefore subordinate to the 
laws of consciousness. Hence he has no appeal from this 
ultimate dictum ; and seeing this, he sees that the only 
possible further achievement is the reconciliation of the 
dicta of consciousness with one another — the bringing all 
other dicta of consciousness into harmony with this ulti- 
mate dictum. 

Here, then, the inquirer discovers a warrant higher than 
that which any argument can give, for asserting an objec- 
tive existence. Mysterious as seems the consciousness of 
something which is yet out of consciousness, he finds that 
he alleges the reality of this something in virtue of tho 
ultimate law — he is obliged to think it. There is an indis- 
soluble cohesion between each of those vivid and definite 
states of consciousness which he calls a sensation, and an 
indefinable consciousness which stands for a mode of being 
beyond sensation, and separate from himself. When grasp- 
ing his fork and putting food into his mouth, he is wholly 
unable to expel from his mind the notion of something 
18 



4:08 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

which resists the force he is conscious of using ; and he 
cannot suppress the nascent thought of an independent 
existence keeping apart his tongue and palate, and giving 
him that sensation of taste which he is unable to generate 
in consciousness by his own activity. Though self-criti- 
cism shows him that he cannot know what this is which 
lies outside of him ; and though he may infer that not be- 
ing able to say what it is, it is a fiction ; he discovers that 
such self-criticism utterly fails to extinguish the conscious- 
ness of it as a reality. Any conclusion into which he ar- 
gues himself, that there is no objective existence connected 
with these subjective states, proves to be a mere verbal 
conclusion to which his thoughts will not respond. The 
relation survives every effort to destroy it — is proved by 
experiment, repeated no matter how often, to be one of 
which the negation is inconceivable; and therefore one 
having supreme authority. In vain he endeavours to give 
it any greater authority by reasoning ; for whichever of 
the two alternatives he sets out with, leaves him at the end 
just where he started. If, knowing nothing more than his 
own states of consciousness, he declines to acknowledge 
any thing beyond consciousness until it is proved, he may 
go on reasoning for ever without getting any further; 
since the perpetual elaboration of states of consciou- 
out of states of consciousness, can never produce any thing 
more than states of consciousness. If, contrariwise, he 
postulates external existence, and considers it as merely 
postulated, then the whole fabric of his argument, stand- 
ing upon this postulate, has no greater validity than the 
postulate gives it, minus the possible invalidity of the ar- 
gument itself. The case must not be confounded with 
those cases in which an hypothesis, or provisional assump- 
tion, is eventually proved true by its agreement with tacts; 
for in these cases the facts with which it is found to a _ 
are facts known in some other way than through the hv- 



THE PRINCIPLE OF INHERITED EXPERIENCES. 409 

pothesis: a calculated eclipse of the moon serves as a 
verification of the hypothesis of gravitation, because its 
occurrence is observable without taking for granted the 
hypothesis of gravitation. But when the external world 
is postulated, and it is supposed that the validity of the 
postulate may be shown by the explanation of mental phe- 
nomena which it furnishes, the vice is, that the process of 
verification is itself possible only by assuming the thing to 
be proved. 

But now, recognizing the indissoluble cohesion between 
the consciousness of self and an unknown not-self as con- 
stituting a dictum of consciousness which he is both com- 
pelled to accept and is justified by analysis in accepting, 
it is competent for the inquirer to consider whether, setting 
out with this dictum, he can base on it a satisfactory ex- 
planation of what he calls knowledge. He finds such an 
explanation possible. The hypothesis that the more or less 
coherent relations among his states of consciousness, are 
generated by experience of the more or less constant rela- 
tions in something beyond his consciousness, furnishes him 
with solutions of numerous facts of consciousness : not, 
however, of all, if he assumes that this adjustment of inner 
to outer relations has resulted from his own experiences 
alone. Nevertheless if he allows himself to suppose that 
this moulding of thoughts into correspondence with things? 
has been going on through all Time ; and that the effects 
of experiences have been inherited in the shape of modi- 
fied organic structure ; then he is able to interpret all the 
phenomena. It becomes possible to understand how these 
persistent cohesions among states of consciousness, are 
themselves the products of often-repeated experiences ; and 
that even what are known as " forms of thought," are but 
the absolute internal uniformities generated by infinite 
repetitions of absolute external uniformities. It becomes 
possible also to understand how, in the course of organ- 



110 THE TEST OF TROTH. 









izing these multiplying and widening experiences, there 
may arise partially-wrong connections in thought, answer- 
ing to limited converse with things ; and that these con- 
nections in thought, temporarily taken for indissoluble 
ones, may afterwards be made dissoluble by presentation 
of external relations at variance with them. But even 
when this occurs, it can afford no ground for questioning 
the test of indissolubility; since the process by which 
6ome connection previously accepted as indissoluble, is 
broken, is simply the establishment of some antagonistic 
connection, which proves, on a trial of strength, to be the 
stronger — which remains indissoluble when pitted against 
the other, w r hile the other gives way. And this leaves the 
test just where it was ; showing only that there is a liabil- 
ity to error as to what are indissoluble connections. From 
the very beginning, therefore, to the very end of the expla- 
nation, even down to the criticism of its conclusions and 
the discovery of its errors, the validity of this test most 
be postulated. Whence it is manifest, as before said, that 
the whole business of explanation can be nothing more 
than that of bringing all other dicta of consciousness into 
harmony with this ultimate dictum. 

To the positive justification of a proposition, may be 

added that negative justification which is derived from the 
untenability of the counter-proposition. When describing 
the attitude of pure Empiricism, some indications that its 
counter-proposition is untenable were given; but it will be 
well here to state, more specifically, the fundamental ob- 
jections to which it is open. 

If the ultimate test of truth is not that here alleg 
then what is the ultimate test oi truth? And if there is 
no ultimate test of truth, then what is the warrant for ac- 
cepting certain propositions and rejecting others? An 
opponent who denies the validity of this test, may legit* 






A TEST DEMANDED OF EMPEKICISM. 411 

mately decline to furnish, any test himself, so long as he 
does not affirm any thing to be true ; but if he affirms 
some things to be true and others to be not true, his war- 
rant for doing so may fairly be demanded. Let us glance 
at the possible response to the demand. If asked why he 
holds it to be unquestionably true that two quantities 
which differ in unequal degrees from a third quantity are 
themselves unequal, two replies seem open to him : he may 
say that this is an ultimate fact of consciousness, or that it 
is an induction from personal experiences. The reply that 
it is an ultimate fact of consciousness, raises the question, 
How is an ultimate fact of consciousness distinguished ? 
All beliefs, all conclusions, all imaginations even, are facts 
of consciousness ; and if some are to be accepted as be- 
yond question because ultimate, while others are not to be 
accepted as beyond question because not ultimate, there 
comes the inevitable inquiry respecting the test of ulti- 
macy. On the other hand, the reply that this truth is 
known only by induction from personal experiences, sug- 
gests the query, On what warrant are personal expe- 
riences asserted ? The testimony of experience is given 
only through memory ; and its worth depends wholly on 
the trustworthiness of memory. Is it, then, that the trust- 
worthiness of memory is less open to doubt than the im- 
mediate consciousness that two quantities must be unequal 
if they differ from a third quantity in unequal degrees ? 
This can scarcely be alleged. Memory is notoriously un- 
certain. We sometimes suppose ourselves to have said 
things which it turns out we did not say ; and we often 
forget seeing things which it is proved we did see. We 
speak of many passages of our lives as seeming like 
dreams ; and can vaguely imagine the whole past to be an 
illusion. We can go much further toward conceiving that 
our recollections do not answer to any actualities, than we 
can go toward conceiving the non-existence of Space. Bui 



4:12 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

even supposing the deliverances of memory to l>e above 
criticism, the most that can be said for the experiences to 
which memory testifies, is that we are obliged to think we 
have had them — cannot conceive the negation of the prop- 
osition that we have had them ; and to say this is to assign 
the warrant which is repudiated. 

A further counter-criticism may be made. Throughout 
the argument of pure Empiricism, it is tacitly assumed 
that there may be a Philosophy in which nothing is as- 
serted but what is proved. It proposes to admit into the 
coherent fabric of its conclusions, no conclusion that is 
incapable of being established by evidence ; and it thus 
takes for granted that not only may all derivative truths 
be proved, but also that proof may be given of the truths 
from which they are derived, down to the very deepest. 
The result of thus refusing to recognize some fundamental 
unproved truth, is simply to leave its fabric of conclusions 
without a base. The giving proof of any special proposi- 
tion, is the assimilation of it to some class of propositions 
known to be true. If any doubt arises respecting the gen- 
eral proposition which is cited in justification of this 
cial proposition, the course is to show that this general 
proposition is deducible from a proposition or propositions 
of still greater generality ; and if pressed for proof of 
each such still more general proposition, the only resource 
is to repeat the process. Is this process endless ? If so, 
nothing can be proved — the whole series of propositions 
depends on some unassignable proposition. Has the pro- 
eess an end? If so, there most eventually la- reached a 
widest proposition — one which cannot be justified by si 
mg that it is included by any wider — one which cannot be 
proved. Or to put the argument otherwise: Every infer- 
ence depends on premises; every premise, if it admits of 
proof, depends on other premises : and if the proof o{ the 
proof be continually demanded, it must either end in an 



THE DILEMMA OF EMPIRICISM. £13 

unproved premise, or in the acknowledgment that there 
cannot be reached any premise on which the entire series 
of proofs depends. Hence Philosophy, if it does not 
avowedly stand on some datum underlying reason, must 
acknowledge that it has nothing on which to stand. 

The expression of divergence from Mr. Mill on this 
fundamental question, I have undertaken with reluctance, 
only on finding it needful, both on personal and on general 
grounds, that his statements and arguments should be met. 
For two reasons, especially, I regret having thus to con- 
tend asfainst the doctrine of one whose agreement I should 
value more than that of any other thinker. In the first 
place, the difference is, I believe, superficial rather than 
substantial ; for it is in the interests of the Experience- 
Hypothesis that Mr. Mill opposes the alleged criterion of 
truth ; while it is as harmonizing with the Experience- 
Hypothesis, and reconciling it with all the facts, that I de- 
fend this criterion. In the second place, this lengthened 
exposition of a single point of difference, unaccompanied 
by an exposition of the numerous points of concurrence, 
unavoidably produces an appearance of dissent very far 
greater than that which exists. Mr. Mill, however, whose 
unswerving allegiance to truth is on all occasions so con- 
spicuously displayed, will fully recognize the justification 
for this utterance of disagreement on a matter of such 
profound importance, philosophically considered ; and will 
not require any apology for the entire freedom with which 
I have criticised his views while seeking to substantiate 
my own. 



INDEX. 



Absolute morality, function of, 211, 
215, 249; meaning of, 224. 

Accommodation-bills characterized, 
129. 

Adam Smith, education of, 374. 

Adaptations of private enterprise, 76. 

Adjective, collocation of with sub- 
stantive, 16. 

Association of words and ideas, 12. 

Attention, force expended in, 39. 



B 



Bank of England, suspension of, 323, 
a monopoly, 324. 

Bankers' operations, checks upon, 
347. 

Bankers, temptations of, 345. 

Bank, notes defined, 322. 

Banking delinquencies, 127. 

Basis of a credit currency, 320. 

Blair, Dr., 10. 

Beauty of aspect and beauty of char- 
acter, relation of, 149. 

Breeding, equilibrium of constitu- 
tions in, 16i. 

Buying commercial patronage, 109. 



Cause and effect, complexity of their 

connection, 62. 
Causes of dishonesties in trade, 139. 
Chancery courts, 95. 
character and expression, 149. 



Civilized races, mixed origin of, 15*| 
Civilization, present phase of, 146. 
Classes, upper and lower; morality 

and conscientiousness of, 354. 
Clergy, their opposition to the repea 

of the corn laws, 356. 
Climax, explanation of, 42. 
Cloths, cheating in their lengths, 

113. 
Clothing trades, briberies and dis- 
honesties in, 108. 
Commercial disasters, origin of, 133. 
Commercial immoralities, root of, 

142. 
Composition, literary, upon what it 

depends, 9. 
Concrete terms, advantage of, 15. 
Contractors, railway, 273. 
Convicts, treatment of transported, 

219. 
Corporate conscience, 261. 
Currency discussion, relation of the 

parties to it, 349. 
Currency, mixed origin of, 320. 
Crises, monetary, in England, 330; 

in Hamburg, 333. 
Crises, salutary effects of, 341. 



D 



Dancing, when graceful, 314. 

Defoe on the corruptions of trade, 
137. 

Desires personal, the motor of social 
changes, 84. 

Despotism, advantages of, 192; mis- 
chiefs of, 198. 

Despotism of trades-unions, 361. 



416 



EsDEX. 



Directors, railway, misdoings of, 275. 
Dishonesty cumulative, 262. 
Distrust of the validity of our be- 
liefs, 48. 



E 



Ecclesiastical courts, 95, 

Economy of the sensibilities, 40. 

Economizing the reader's attention, 
11. 

Education of the working classes, 
371. 

Electors, character of, 173; intelli- 
gence of, 174, 181. 

Emotion, poetry the language of, 33. 

English government, work it at- 
tempts, 182; view of, 187-191. 

Erroneous popular notions respect- 
ing corporate companies, 254. 

Evils produced by judicial adminis- 
tration, 0". 

Experience, limits to the teachings 
of, 103. 

Expression, definition of, 150. 

Expression, no general theory of, 10. 

Extension railway, origin of the sys- 
tem of, 258. 



Facial features and natural express- 
ion, 151. 

Faith in government must be out- 
grown, 106. 

Feeling should control style, 4G. 

Figures of speech, 87. 

Forces acting in society, 63. 

Force in expression. OS* 

Frauds iu trade, how introduced, 

18& 

French social order, 89. 
Free-trade, 91 ; morality of, tlSL 



G 



Generalization of social notion*. 92. 
Gold, drainage of from the country, 

335; considered as a commodity, 

337. 
Government attempts too much. 98 ; 

bound to enforce contracts, 
Gracefulness, theory of, 312. 
Grammar, Dr. Latham on, 9. 
Grocery trade, cheating iu the, 115. 
Guizot,' 99. 



Hero-worship, nature of, 194. 

Honesty in trade the road to bank- 
ruptcy, 125. 

Honor paid to wealthy rogues, 144. 

Humility needed in political conduct, 
50. 

Hybridity, 160. 



Ideal Greek head, 154. 
Institutions must grow, 76; deter 

mined by popular character, 216. 
Intermediate system of prison disci 

pline, 234. 



Joint stock enterprises, lesson drawr. 

from, 251. 
Judicial n coherence, 98. 
Justice neglected by government, 94 



Kames, Lord, 1^, 2'"*. 

Knaveries of wholesale houses, 115. 



Language, relation of to thought 

11; friction of, 42. 
Land-owners greed influences rail 

way policy. 
Law the enemy of the citize- . 
Laws, inefficiency i 
Lawyer*' railway. ! 
Legislative i 
Legislative interference with curren 

cy, had effects of. 
Legislation, blind faith in, 51. 
Liberty m any a - e a fixed quantity 

Loyalty, use of, 195; causes of do. 
clinc of, 196. 



II 



Manufacturers, dishonesties of, 118- 

Mark system, working <\ 

Material development the work of 

the age, 146. 
Mechanics' institutions, managemenl 

of. I 
Mental faculties, expansion of, 41. 



INDJLJL 



417 



Mendacity of clerks, 112. 

Metaphor, use of, 30. 

Metonymy, use of, 28. 

Mettray, case of, 233. 

Mind and feature, relation of, 155. 

Mis-education, evils of, 372. 

Mixed currency self-adjusting, 327. 

Morality, relative and absolute, 210 ; 
of various classes, 354. 

Morals of trade, 107; signs of im- 
provement in, 148. 

Mutual restraint of class interests, 
381. 



N 



National character, how formed, 100. 



O 



Obermair's experience as prison gov- 
ernor, 231. 

Officialism, slowness of, 67; stupid- 
ity of, 67; extravagance of, 68; 
unadaptiveness of, 69 ; corruption 
of, 71 ; obstrnctiveness of, 72. 

Offspring, mixed qualities of, 157. 

Opinions, distrust of, 48. 

Order of social requirements, 85; 
government cannot judge of, 87. 

Over-legislation, negative evils of, 93. 



Paper circulation, excess of, when 
salutary, 324. 

Parental constitutions, traits of in 
offspring, 158. 

Peel, Sir Robert, on the efficacy of 
legislation, 104. 

Philanthropy, short-sightedness of, 
100. 

Poetic speech, in what it consists, 
37. 

Political education, necessity of, 374. 

Popular character determines the 
penal code, 216. 

Predicate and subject, arrangement 
of, 18. 

Printers Union, working of, 359. 

Prison discipline in relation to idle- 
ness, 240 ; to self-control, 240. 

Prison ethics, approved system of, 
244. 

Private enterprise, what it has ac- 
complished, 54 • superiority of, 



over government, 75; continental 
dependence on, 102. 

Prominence of jaw, meaning of, 151. 

Protecting the individual against 
himself, 55. 

Protection, governmental, 91. 

Protuberant cheek bones, signifi- 
cance of, 153. 

Public prudence liable to fluctuation, 
321. 

Punishment, grounds of its justice, 
221-225 ; in what it should consist, 
225 ; just limits of, 226 ; how to fix 
its duration, 242; scheme of, dic- 
tated by justice, 244; evil efi'ects 
of excessive, 239. 



R 



Railroad companies paralleled with 
the state, 252. 

Railroad officials, character of, 260. 

Railroads, order of their appearance 
in England, 88. 

Railway administration, essential vi- 
ciousness of, 256. 

Railway companies, dishonesties of, 
253-255. 

Railway directors, how elected, 269. 

Railway engineers, morality of, 271. 

Railway politics, morality of, 213. 

Railway system, fundamental vice 
of, 290. 

Reform-bill, horror of, 353. 

Reform-bill of Lord John Russell, 
377. 

Representative government, faults 
of, 172-191; why it is the best, 
201-204 ; failures of, due to misap- 
plication, 204-207; when danger- 
ous, 376. 

Representatives, acts of governed by 
interest, 175 ; principle in choosing, 
175; naval and military officers as, 
177 ; lawyers as, 179 ; qualifications 
of, 184. 

Representative system in corpora- 
tions, 251. 

Restrictions on the hours of labor, 
358. 

Right to coerce the criminal, basis of, 
221-225. 



S 



Salesmen, their falsehood and dupli. 

city, 110. 
Saxon English, 12; brevity of, 13. 



418 



INDEX. 



Self-dependent races, progressive- 
ness of, 102. 

Self-criticism, 49. 

Self-help, national, 101. 

Sensibilities, economy of, 40. 

Sentences, arrangement of parts of, 
20 ; suspensions of, 23. 

Shareholders, railway, small influ- 
ence of, 279 ; characters of, 283. 

Sheep, mixture of French and Eng- 
lish races of, 158. 

Silk-business, frauds in, 119. 

Simile, use of, 28. 

Social changes, unlikely origin of, 
82. 

Social science, importance of diffus- 
ing a knowledge of, 875. 

Solitary system increases the ten- 
dency to crime, 220. 

State agency contrasted with private 
enterprise, 77 ; dependent upon' 
private action, 79. 

State enterprise, positive injuries of, 

State, failure of to perform its du- 
ties, 52. 

Stimulus to social action, BS. 

Stocking weavers, distress and re- 
lief of, 83. 

Style, why it should be varied, 44; 
direct and indirect, 24; varies with 
the mind addressed, 85; employ- 
ment of figures in, 87. 

Synechdoche, use of, 27. 



Tailors, how they are cheated, 111. 
Taxation should be direct as the fntn» 

chise is extended, 37. 
Town councils, character of, 169 ; 

extravagance of, 171. 
Trade essentially corrupt, 134. 
Trade immoralities, are they growing 

worse? 136; remedy for, 146. 
Trades-unions, tyranny of, 378. 



University education, estimate of, 

. 
Utopianisms of the working classes, 
3G5. 



Valencia, prison of, 237. 

W 

Wealth, indiscriminate respe:t paid 
to, 140; ]>: -t the adora- 

tion of, 147 ; the f hon- 

e<tlv acquired, respectable, 145. 

W Lately, Dr. i 

Working eludes in England, de- 
mands of, 357. 

Working classes, education of, 

Words, economic use of, 18; use of 
l"n_r, 14; strength of ^\uu, 15; 
nee of, 16. 



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